Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Les Savy Fav - Rome (Written Upside Down) ep


Label: Southern
Year: 2000

I was late to the party on this band because I hated the hype they had been getting. I'm stubbornly reactionary that way, and it rarely works out for me. Go figure. 
So anyway, I got the "Inches" compilation when it came out in 2004 as a way to covertly catch up on what I had been trying to ignore, and, surprise, it was real good. Since then I've gotten in my DeLorean and driven 88 miles per hour back in time to scoop up some of the bands earlier releases, this being one of them.
I like their take on post-punk, it's twitchy, bubbly, kinda mean, and always well executed. It's as if they're smart enough to be clever, but not so smart that they resort to smarmy-ness, and I like that due to my low tolerance for smarmy-ness. Don't tolerate it. They have a good sense of when to hammer on an idea, and when to mix things up. The songs are cohesive, but never boring, like they've found their "sound", and that sound suits them so well. 

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4 comments:

  1. kittyempireDecember 22, 2009 at 10:05 PM

    Nice post. I got into this band the same way, through the 'Inches' comp. Somehow the albums never quite live up to that one... real good band though, like you say they've found their own sound and it works. Lyrically they remind me a bit of mclusky... intelligent and cynical without resorting to smarmy-ness.

    Have yourself a merry xmas!

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  2. AphidDecember 24, 2009 at 9:34 PM

    This is a great EP.It's probably my favorite by them. A very close second would be the album after called "Go Forth." Great stuff. I do have to say though I think the last album they put out "Lets Be Friends" just doesn't have what the others do. I'm not sure exactly what it is but it's not even close to the others. Am I alone on this? By the way, I've seen this band live about 10 times, they are that good.

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  3. WilliamFlipperDecember 25, 2009 at 5:56 AM

    Thanks.. I really like this EP.. I`m living in London (I`m italian) and two years ago every British magazine were building a really huge hype about how great and Art Avant they where (Les)... a lot of shitty Brit post pop famous band were promoting them like if they where the best band ever (Les).... and that pushed me away from Les

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  4. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2020 at 12:40 PM

    Link is down, can you re up please?

    ReplyDelete