DOWNLOAD: Les Savy Fav

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 8, 2010 3:40PM

Our first listen to the new Les Savy Fav had us thinking we had been sent a mislabeled album. We've always thoroughly enjoyed the band's live sets, filled with angular punk and discordant shrieking surrounded by non sequiturs and ribald one-liners, but their albums never really satisfied us. In the studio it always seemed the band was simply trying harder to art rock-out than honestly rawk out.

The new album Root For Ruin rectifies that issue, and while longtime fans may be turned off by the band's sudden embrace of melody, big riffage, and sing-along choruses, we find the material to be far more satisfying than anything the band has previously done. The album does do some genre switching here and there; at one point power pop rules, then they group channels a more Pacific Northwestern guitar vibe, and there are moments where the groups love of the Dead Kennedys and Jesus Lizard do come shining back to the fore. Altogether it's a keeper of an album that retains the band's twisted and sometimes confrontational wit and makes it even more subversive by wrapping it in such deliciously crunchy music.

Download standout track "Let's Get Out Of Here" below to get a taste of the band's new direction, but before you do we offer a genuine word of warning; prepare to have the song stuck in your head for the next few days.

MP3: Les Savy Fav "Let's Get Out Of Here"

Root For Ruin is available on iTunes now, and will see a physical release on September 14