hen abrasive underground legends Big Black released their Headache EP, it came with a declamatory sticker – in addition to what may possibly be the most gruesome straight-from-the-morgue verité cover image of all time – that read, “Not as good as Atomizer.” And, naturally, a good number or indie fans, music scribes, music nerds, and would-be rock scribes (maybe we hear at the OHJ stand, like those tourists at the junction of the square western states, with an extremity in each camp) have begun to spout off much the same about Les Savy Fav’s latest album with regard to its truly incredible predecessor, Rome (Written Upside Down), a rare thing, the condensed EP of I-can’t-quite-believe-what’s-happening-here-as-I-hear-it brilliance, by turns hilarious, invigorating, and oddly affecting. But I would venture to say that’s not the case here: this album’s a bit more expansive, low-key, and subtle. Is it, you ask, an album made by a group feverishly distraught over reproducing the success of Rome, a group short on creativity? Well, no.


(If I may interject a personal glamorous-life-of-a-zine-reviewer anecdote: I, on the other hand, am experiencing just this follow-up anxiety. I’ve spent the past two days banging out abortive drafts of a final paper for a course I’ve gotten A’s in so far, and the fact that I really have nothing to worry about, I believe, means that I’m intent on making things much harder on myself than they should be. Without going into much detail (except to say that my current routine has involved not showering and not shaving and doing things like watching five incredibly mediocre [except maybe for the presence of Molly Shannon, who I am strongly and weirdly attracted to] SNL reruns on Comedy Central, aided by a pretty bad bit of stomach poisoning), I am going to tell you that current circumstances have led me to take the first-draft, track-by-track tack for this review, out of what I fear may be a startling lack of originality. But, onward, friends, perhaps you’ll learn something, in this case, that “something” being whether or not you’d like to purchase this album. If you don’t feel like reading the rest of this, my advice is that you probably should. If you do, well, then, off we go.)


“Tragic Monsters” is a melodic, analog-keyboard-warm introductory track, with a somewhat gently rousing chorus featuring one of my favorite first-song-on-the-album statements in a while in “What / We don’t know / Could fill a truck.” It’s followed by “Reprobate’s Resume,” which starts off as abrasive and punkish as the band and lead singer Tim Harrington (who you may know resembles a goofy, benevolent, burnt-out ex-hippie-and/or progressive rock fan/art teacher, with his balding pate and profuse beard) have sounded in a while, before surf drumbeats and twisting verses set in, the song fading out as a four-on-the-floor drum-machine beat – a nice surprise, like the experimental touches of Rome but not seeming an overly forced attempt to capture that aesthetic – starts up, joined by more echoed percussion and a chiming, almost B-52’s-esque guitar riff – another nice surprise – and, soon, a fantastic bassline, joined sporadically by Talking-Heads-like chicken-scratch funk guitar. Another fantastic melody, I find, is possessed by this song, “Crawling Can Be Beautiful.” It’s over far too soon, though, moving into “Disco Drive,” which more or less announces its rhythmic intent in its title, rhythm section joined by frayed choral bursts of synthesizer and a wall of hybridized post-punk/hard rock guitar (think perhaps Publicthe self-conscious and flaky fuck-offery absent) which becomes more fearsome and driving in the song’s midsection, which leads to an accelerating climax. I should mention that the high-pitched vocal-doubling effect from Flipper’s “Life Is Cheap” makes an appearance. Subtle synths and a subdued, near-Afro-Pop woodblock-and-drum percussive figure usher in “The Slip,” in which Harrington advises, cryptically, “Let go of everything you know / And love / And fear.”


A beautiful-yet-eerie circular effects-treated guitar begins “Daily Dares,” which quickly revises its angle of attack into one featuring pointed, dissonant guitar and epically reverbed drum-crashes, then finishes, abruptly. “One To Three” has the sort of shimmering, arpeggiated, vaguely off-kilter guitar intro Blink 182 might write after self-trepanation, and typically reference-thick, abstract lyrics – sometimes one feels that Harrington’s got something he’s trying to communicate to you, but happens to be incapable of using normal metaphors – as strangely poignant as my personal favorite track from Rome, “Asleeper’s Union.” Seemingly the most skeletal, Gang-Of-Four-influenced track at hand, at least until a bevy of guitar effects and bipolar shouting sets in, “Pills” may also be the album’s most enigmatic, once you try to figure out what is or may be going on besides a straightforward, thrilling Rock Moment. The relatively straightforward narrative of “Adoptduction” – which recasts the baroque fluorishes of prog in a rough-hewn garage format, right down to burying its adorning layer of synthesizer – comes as a welcome afterward, even though it (of course) devolves into a wonderfully histrionic, ranting performance. Afterward, it seems inevitable that “No Sleeves,” despite a likeable, no-nonsense bassline and some truly odd religious-experience-as-pop-culture-staple lyrics, seems a slight letdown. “Bloom on Demand” begins like Fugazi in a lighter, if no less thoughtful, mood, wanders a bit, then rebuilds itself as a versatile guitar stomper, joined by 1983-vintage synthesizer burble-and-glide, a cacophony of effects detail, and it all drifts away into amplified, out-of-focus vinyl crackle.


So, that’s the album. I would argue that no track here, save “Adoptduction” and “Crawling,” is as singularly great as anything from the EP, but the whole is definitely greater – and, for that matter, pretension-free – than the sum of its parts. This record is assured, playful, quirky but never forced. If it sounds like your sort of thing, then, by all means, check it out.