Les Savy Fav: Oui, LSF review – New York post-punk oddballs make restrained return

A thrilling live proposition since the late 1990s, due in large part to the stage magnetism of frontman Tim Harrington, the New York-based post-punk five-piece Les Savy Fav never quite managed to distil that magic into equally essential albums until 2007’s less abrasive, more melodic Let’s Stay Friends, before hitting a peak with 2010’s Root for Ruin. Having done so, they then promptly disappeared on hiatus. Their first new album in 14 years is very much of a piece with those two records, though it doesn’t consistently scale the same heights.

The songs are still built around Seth Jabour and Andrew Reuland’s crystalline, Keith Levene-esque guitars, but there’s a little more restraint at play. Harrington’s lyrics, meanwhile, nicely balance quotidian despair (“You used to love me/ Now you just don’t mind me”) with some of the more outre imagery that characterised earlier records (“Loving you’s like getting fucked by a cat”). The likes of Void Moon and Barbs certainly hit the mark, although anaemic ballad Don’t Mind Me feels like a misstep. Taken on its own merits, Oui, LSF is bold and engaging – it’s just not as bold and engaging as some of their previous records.