Les Savy Fav - Inches

Les Savy Fav are the best live band I've ever seen. Their live shows were the only places I could hear some of my favorite songs by them, i.e. "Yawn, Yawn, Yawn" and "The Sweat Descends," because they were only previously available on extremely rare 7" vinyls. I could always find some rough mp3s available online, but I just knew there had to be a better way of getting some of these vinyl-only gems. (Drum roll please). Finally, as part of their master plan, Les Savy Fav have unleased Inches on us, a veritable gold mine of great LSF songs never before released on CD and very hard to obtain on vinyl. I guess I should almost treat this like a new release as opposed to a collection. I've never heard some of this material before, some of which I never even knew existed. Regardless, just about every inclusion on this disc is incredible, and they're becoming instant favorites for me. I could go on and on about how I love this, and I could name all the songs that I love, which would be practically the whole disc. There are three really notable things I need to mention about the disc though: First, they included a dramatic reading on this; a six-minute track that has dialog from characters in a story involving the death of sailors at sea in a submarine and the aftermath with their families. Very weird stuff, but still interesting and captivating. Second is the inclusion of a bonus DVD, featuring live footage and interesting commentary from band members and friends, like comedians David Cross and Fred Armisen. Thirdly, the song "Yawn, Yawn, Yawn," which is easily my favorite Les Savy Fav song and one of my Top 10 favorite songs to come out in this new millenium. It's got the Pixies-like quirkiness and explosiveness that originally made me love this band but done to absolute perfection. I can't say any more about this one. If you like Les Savy Fav already, Inches is an absolutely PERFECT addition to their release collection, bringing together all their 7". Oddly enough, they actually planned 8 years ago to release all of these 7" and then gather them for a collection. The ambition it took to do this is reason enough for your interest, but the sheer excellence of every song makes this CD a must have. Great stuff. [www.frenchkissrecords.com]