LES SAVY FAV

LES SAVY FAV
GO FORTH (2001)
320 KBPS

Go Forth is the third full-length album from Brooklyn's new-wave bruisers Les Savy Fav. One of the most remarkable acts to ever emerge from America's postpunk melting pot (a gang of sharp-dressed art students and a frenzied, hairy front man who dresses as a pirate), Les Savy Fav bring the art of confrontation back to rock & roll, but barb their brash physical assault with a musical ingenuity and fierce intelligence. While the Rome (Written Upside Down) EP was the first record to properly capture the Les Savy live sound--a lithe, danceable new-wave rush peppered with electronics--Go Forth adds beats and synthesizer to the tight, jarring musical clatter. Front man Tim Harrington's continues to write enlightening and elliptical lyrics, a frantic mix of cryptic intellectual allusions and cut-and-paste wordplay ("I crave to catch an edge / Break bones and cartilage / Send back the architects of Carthage," he hollers on "One to Three"). With so much of the alternative sector lost to irony, decadence, and self-absorption, Go Forth sounds as pure and true as a missionary's teachings. Become a convert.

1. Tragic Monsters
2. Reprobate's Resumé
3. Crawling Can Be Beautiful
4. Disco Drive
5. The Slip
6. Daily Dares
7. One to Three
8. Pills
9. Adopduction
10. No Sleeves
11. Bloom on Demand