Let's Stay Friends
by Les Savy Fav

Album details

US: 18 September 2007 on Frenchkiss
UK: 1 October 2007 on Wichita

SNL’s Fred Armisen (!) and members of Metric, Black Heart Procession, Islands, Enon and Fiery Furnaces guest on the New York City band’s first new studio album since 2001’s ‘Go Forth.’ It’s only the fourth studio album in their dozen-year history.

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The critical consensus

Longtime Les Savy Fav fans may be happy to know that the former art-schoolers are still a going concern as a recording entity. They’ll be even happier to know that Let’s Stay Friends doesn’t disappoint.

Exclaim! finds that the experience of listing to Friends "feels like discovering your new favourite band for the first time." Entertainment Weekly is impressed that the album is somehow "malevolent and charming at once," while Prefix adds that the "songs manage to seem loose, fun and deliberate all at once." Lost At Sea has this to say about a solid punk album with borderline-acceptable production: "Perfect it may not be, but as perfect as possible it might, and Let’s Stay Friends certainly has more than enough fervor to make it one of the more refreshing punk purist releases since Fugazi laid down a baker’s dozen of songs in the last century." Chart Attack comments that, "The pop is poppier, the rock is rockier and Tim Harrington has never sounded more confident." And Treble, though enjoying every track on the album, concludes, "At least half of the songs here could be singles (two officially are), and incredible ones at that."

A satisfied Pitchfork notes that while "it’s not Les Savy Fav’s most immediate record, nor is it their best," it showcases a band trying to grow and evolve, with only a few failed experiments standing in the way of greatness. PopMatters similarly finds that Les Savy Fav is striving for "greater complexity" and "new ways to express its vision." And Stylus deems Friends "the band’s most propulsive and moving offering yet," while NME labels it "their definitive record."

Les Savy Fav’s trump, as always, is its songwriting: No amount of cheeky deconstruction or dance-floor pandering can mask the group’s lust for hooks, wordplay, and sharp arrangements that lock into a quirky internal logic.

- Jason Heller, The Onion A.V. Club

Review roundup

Tracklisting and media

1. Pots & Pans
2. The Equestrian
3. The Year Before the Year 2000
4. Patty Lee
   
   
5. What Would Wolves Do?
6. Brace Yourself
7. Raging in the Plague Age
8. Slugs in the Shrubs
9. Kiss Kiss Is Getting Old
10. Comes & Goes
11. Scotchgard the Credit Card
12. The Lowest Bitter

Also on the web

• Official Artist Site
• Les Savy Fav @ Frenchkiss
• Les Savy Fav @ MySpace