Sometimes we forget that the blood is in there. We spend all our time walking around and not bleeding that it comes as quite a surprise and shock to the system to deal with a cut, the pain of it and all that red. It's just as easy to pay no mind to the lungs inflating and deflating all day and night, without fail. The times when you really start to pay attention is when it gets to be problematic. You're unable to think about anything else but this automatic activity that defies so much logic because there are literally no activities that are automatic. So you start to worry until you lose focus and again forget that it happens. We tend to forget that - as the human race - we're all kinds of bad news. We forget all about the climate that we've thrown completely out of whack and we forget about what kinds of shitheads we really are, deep down, when the chips fall. It's good that we have the men of New York's Les Savy Flav to refresh our memories, first, about how poor of a job we're doing as compassionate stewards and, secondly, that even in spite of it all, the spirit that we still seem to harbor - even in the bleakest of times - is sorta miraculous. It's this very interesting collision of ideas that Tim Harrington, Seth Jabour, Syd Butler, Harrison Haynes and Andrew Reuland put into their music. They're always reminding us about the slough - a condition that we have to be witnessing because we mostly brought it on ourselves. Harrington spits at us, mocks us, chastises us and it's okay because he's pointing as many fingers at himself when he's doing it. There's always the safety of the "we" in all of his dissertations. None of us are getting off the hook or escaping the purgatory that we seem to be urging on. The beginning of the song, "Pills," from the band's 2001 album, "Go Forth," is such a good burn. It makes forces your nerves and rattles you a bit when Harrington snarls:
Once when walking in the woods
I came upon a burning bush.
"What wants you vision?", says I
And it spoke, and I quote,
"Apocalypse can go down easy
You gotta know it's an acquired taste.
Your sacrifice can't please me
I'm dead set to destroy this place.
Hip hip for imperfection,
I want to make a mess.
I've got a secret theory
That disarray works best
And though it don't work often
Oh my God when it does --
Watch as the outburst softens
It's had its way with us."
Recorded a while ago now and sat dusty for no good reason, this session shows a band that's perfected the art of riling and damn if it doesn't feel good. For those of us who get so caught up in our lives and we forget to sweat, Les Savy Fav brings that musky smell of sweat back to us. For those of us who might need some smelling salts on occasion, they just punch you in the nose. Done a certain way, it has the same effect.