Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends (2007/Frenchkiss)

“Art punk” is one of the dumbest “musical genres” I've ever heard. It's a ridiculous phrase that wouldn't exist if it weren't for music snobs that feel the need to label everything. A quick Wikipedia search tells me that it can refer to music made by kids who went to art school and liked Sonic Youth, or music that is done to sound sorta/kinda/maybe experimental. Silly, right? Unfortunately, as much disdain as I have toward the term, I can't help but think that Les Savy Fav do both with style.

Let's Stay Friends is their most accessible record to date. It hits the perfect balance and finds the perfect blend of noise, punk, dance, funk, and pop creating an album that only the deaf couldn't enjoy. Seth Jabour's guitar work is top-notch, creating captivating hook after captivating hook, especially on one of the album's best tracks, “Patty Lee.” Syd Butler's basslines are unceasingly fitting; sometimes groovy, sometimes thumping, always good. He works hand in hand with drummer Harrison Haynes, driving all the songs forward, or pulling back on the reigns when appropriate. On top of that, Tim Harrington is a master when it comes to thinking up quirky, but thoughtful, lyrics and he delivers them with gusto. “If you feel, my dear the end is near/ please do check your frontal hemisphere,” he sings on “The Year Before the Year 2000,” a song that's urging people to always party like it's 1999. It's all really fun stuff.

What's the problem, then?

It's own accessibility is its biggest flaw. By easing up on the noisy guitars that may have driven listeners away from previous albums, and Harrington singing instead of barking, there's a loss of intensity on the record. There aren't enough songs that make you want to pump your fist in the air and shout “Fuck yeah!,” and even the ones that do don't deliver hard enough. When Harrington finally lets go at the end of “The Lowest Bitter,” it's too little too late and the album's over. It's less punk, more art.

As far as the pacing goes, it ebbs and flows nicely. Just when you're tired of drums being beaten over your head, the album offers something spacier and more bass driven. And just when you get bored of that, the album offers ripping guitars. These guys know what they're doing. As their website says, they've been “missing out on cashing in for over a decade.” That's a long time to learn how to piece an album together, something most people overlook.

Despite the fact that they have enough indie-cred to start swimming in it Scrooge McDuck style, the overproduction that blankets the entire album is a problem. Sonically, it sounds like a band's first album on a major label. Yes, I am aware of how pretentious that sentence sounds, but it's true. There's a slick sheen over the album that detracts from the meager offerings of raw grit that we get. This is especially true when it comes to the drums. Take “Raging in the Plague Age,” for instance. The drums on that track should be bone rattling and gut wrenchingly powerful, but they get muted and muffled so instead they sit, comfortable in being nothing more than a metronome.

Even with its flaws, Lets Stay Friends is still an amazing album. I think I'd be happy using the phrase “art punk” if it referred to music that was as good as Les Savy Fav.