Les Savy Fav –It’s A Like Affair

September is a BIG MONTH for people who follow new music — tons of new releases will soon be raining down upon our senses. This (along with football) makes the end of summer a bit more bearable. In the next few days, we’re gonna see something from Nick Cave’s Grinderman side project, the first Superchunk elpee in ages, a new and most-likely deliciously weird release from Of Montreal… and that’s just for starters. That week, I got my ink-stained mitts on Root For Ruin from Brooklyn’s reliable Les Savy Fav. It’s quite good.

“Quite good” was how I felt about Go Forth, the other Les Savy Fav record I know about, a compact disc that sits on an IKEA shelf with about 2000 other compact discs I rarely listen too.

Root For Ruin is good enough for me to play spot the influence with (“Hey… Tim Harrington still sings like the mutant child Johnny Lydon and Jello Biafra never had with Courtney Love… Whoa… that just sounded like The Pixies… Huh… someone’s been listening hard to Isaac Brock’s pitch-bending whammy work…”) and still come out cheering for them, but in times of leisure when I’m able to listen to what I want to listen to rather than what I have to listen to, I’ll end up reaching for music from The Influences rather than Les Savy Fav.

However; Here’s the good stuff you’ll notice if you pick this one up: “Dirty Knails” — pop this frantic flurry of guitar in if yer driving a fast car and you want to get somewhere in a hurry, but watch for speedtraps. “Sleepless In Silverlake” is made for drinking and hanging out in the sun… it nails the super-relaxed feel of LA pretty damn well. “Lips N’ Stuff” could be a Pixies track… a really good one.

So, yeah… the new Les Savy Fav is extremely alright, but bring on the new Grinderman and Superchunk elpeez, pleez.