Album Review – Page 15 – Modern Mystery

After nearly 15 years of bona fide rock and various on-stage debauchery, Les Savy Fav are still together and making loud and jaunty music for sweaty crowds to jam out to. For their fifth studio album, Root for Ruin (Frenchkiss Records), the Brooklyn band has returned three years after the release of their last album with as much energy and animation that you might expect from their first. For a band that has been together longer than some of their fans have been breathing, that is something to be proud of. And from their repetitive chanting of ‘we’ve still got our appetite’ in the album’s opener, “Appetite,” I think it’s safe to say that they are.

For their last album, Let’s Stay Friends, Les Savy Fav expanded their musical sound by including other artists and even vocals from fans. But for Root for Ruin, it seems they played it safe and kept it within the Fav group. And while one would think this contrast might result in a less exciting and heard-before sound, one would be wrong. The band’s evident-as-ever raw energy and excitement will explode from your speakers/headphones. Most tracks on the album are what you would expect from Les Savy Fav–in-your-face, edgy rockers. Tracks like opener “Appetites” or the guitar-frenzied “Dirty Knails” burst with the energy of their live show. The only thing missing is Tim Harrington–in front of you and dressed like a yeti, making out with a stranger.

But there are a few subdued tracks, like the graceful, grooveful “Sleepless in Silverlake,” that provide a fitting contrast to the usual sweat-fueled jams. One thing, however, remains the same throughout the entire album: it is upfront and direct the whole way through. “Let’s Get Out of Here” isn’t structurally or lyrically complex, but it gets the point across, and it’s catchy. The simple “I want you yo want me now” is overly cliché, but, among the rest of the lyrics, fitting and refreshingly straight forward. In “Excess Energies” Harrington is a 17-year-old loser reflecting on his possibly worthless life and in “Lips ‘n Stuff” Harrington wants a friend with benefits (and who doesn’t?).

It’s no secret. Les Savy Fav has never been fancy or stylistic. They don’t dress up their music (only Tim Harrington’s body) and they don’t confuse you with lyrics. They are real with you. And Root for Ruin is the real deal.

For those over thirty, read this section of the review:

Weezer’s new album, their first for Epitaph records, is like two sweet middle-aged people getting married in the final chapter of a Nicholas Sparks album. Epitaph, the snot nosed obnoxo-core record label that made it’s name in the early 1990s with bands like Offspring, NOFX and Rancid has found the perfect match in this album from Weezer, a return to everything you love about them pre-The Green Album.

For those of you under thirty, please read this section:

Weezer, that band with that “Island in the Sun” song has made an album talking about what it’s like to be old when the only thing you have to look forward to is nostalgia. Oh, but there’s an anthem here for nerdy girls called “Smart Girls” which is basically Buck Cherry’s “Crazy Bitch” for the Tumblr set.

Though a return to the earlier Pinkerton type emotive, poppy, jump around punk, Hurley is not without its own production decision missteps. For every strong song like the first single, “Memories”, a paean to the earlier years of the band which features some clever lyrics such as “When Audioslave was still Rage”, there is an odd track such as “Hang On” filled with all of the strange “wide screen” production flourishes like those that made Against Me!’s New Wave such a disappointment.

These extraneous elements find their way to “Unspoken” in the form of a flute backing the acoustic guitar phrases, and “Trainwrecks” in a Pet Shop Boys-like synth pad intro. Though there are times when these embellishments do add to the songs such as “Time Flies” and “Run Away” yet even there it sounds like they had extra money so why not continue to tinker with tracks to show “Hey we used the production budget!”

A lot has been made about the “grown up” sound of this album, but you’d be better off examining this as more of a mid-life crisis; an album designed to be wistful and bank on the previous experiences the audience had with Weezer than on trying to push forward. Though if Hurley prevents another Raditude, I’m all for it.