Premature Evaluation: Liars - Liars
Unlike Liars' last two albums, this new self-titled collection drops an overriding concept, unless it's love, youth, the ocean, and summertime nostalgia. More immediate and emotionally raw than past work, Liars' trim, submerged, clattering tracks aren't Drum's Not Dead epic or as percussively ragamuffin as They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. Instead, the eleven bits 'n' pieces locate a gorgeous middle, affixing They Threw Us All In A Trench's dance-punk to darker post-Kraut atmospherics. Think about "The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack"'s wistfulness spun with crushing phase, heavy fuzz, lots of drums. There's a suctioned, claustrophobic, a.m.-radio atmosphere a la some no-waving "Remember (Walking In The Sand)," wall-of-sound Spector. Seriously.
The cascading 'n' cutting "Plaster Casts of Everything" creates the perfect, restless opening, Angus Andrews' yowling "I wanna run away/I wanna bring you, too" all "Thunder Road"-like. It's far from the only rock rager: Two-and-a-half-minute psych-pop nugget "Freak Out" rolls into on a serious Ramones/Kicking Giant surf punk kick…. Let the top down! (Slower, ghostly "What Would They Know" manages a similar feel with more Jesus & Mary Chain results.) Also keeping speed, "Houseclouds" is a teenage pill-dropping anthem that pulses with disco high notes and skittering electro-drums; "Cycle Time" layers Andrews' falsetto ("You touched my hand/That's when I born") over a chanted background, feedbacking guitar riffs, and staccato, half-speed drums that flop to hooky rhythms alongside soaring harmonies; and the clamoring "Clear Island" makes like a speedier, more on-target "It Fit When I Was A Kid" (vocal chant, drumstick work).
These rollers collide with slinky ambience. The creepy, distorto "Leather Prowler" (check the zombie-sung echo-canyon vocals) is as underwater as it gets; the Yeats/boat-dropping "Sailing To Byzantium" drifts on a jaunty falsetto, lulling white-noise waves, layered percussion, and, again, dub-like funhouse synthesizers. "Pure Unevil" takes pop and sprinkles it with oilcan tribal drumming and layers of overstuffed, soft feedback.
All this beachfront rock/balladeering leads to coming-of-age finale, "Protection." On it, pensive electro-drums and melodic keyboards frame a hazy storyline (lifeguards, cave-sneaking, oceanside pot smoking, Polaroids, learning how to drink) that goes from naive perfection ("When you close your eyes / I don't need protection") to darkness/loss, a questioning present, and hope for a less-golden, more realistic future. You almost wonder if the album isn't self-titled, per say, but instead deals with the "liars" all of us become when things don't work out as planned, promises are broken, etc.
Karen O admitted recently that she was crying in the "Maps" video because her then boyfriend, Andrews, for whom she'd written the song, had shown up late to the shoot and she was about to head out on tour. Until now we'd never really thought of the lanky Australian as romantic – but damn if Liars doesn't cast a bewitching, elegiac spell. So yeah, we understand, Karen: Dude not only makes hearts flutter, Liars are also the only interesting high-profile band remaining from that bygone 2002 Brooklyn post-punk revival. Yeah, summer lovin', happened so fast.
Liars is out 8/28 on Mute.
Posted at 11:43 AM in Premature Evaluation
Tags: Liars
My friend got a copy of the leak and posted a review plus a couple MP3 tracks at our blog, elastic resonance: http://elasticresonance.wordpress.com/2007/07/11/liars-liars/
The tracks sound pretty sweet, even though I'm not a huge fan of this style.
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I think Clear Island is a really good song, and I haven't listened to the rest of the album.
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This leaked a long time ago, you're just now getting to it?? Oh that's right, you were busy sucking the corporate teet.
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The Liars myspace page has 4 tracks from the new album. They sound great especially 'Plaster Casts of Everything'.
http://www.myspace.com/liarsliarsliars
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This album is so good. The Liars lost me over the last 5 years with a little too much of that artsy noise and drone and lack of song structure, but this album brought me back in a big way. I can't stop listening to it. Everytime it ends, I press replay. Its the first album in a long long time that just completely absorbs me. I wish I could eat it so it could always be inside of me.
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The best album of 2007 comes out today, and it's called "Liars". The cd is by the band
Liars. This is the fourth full-length release from Liars. It has 11 songs and clocks in
around 39 minutes. The band is currently featured on the front page of Myspace, honest to
God, I am not making this up.
There's really something for everyone on this record. If you like the heavy metal genre,
there are songs like "Plaster Casts of Everything" and "Cycle Time" with some really heavy
riffs. My personal favorite song on here is "Freak Out", which is a trashy, noisy, 2-and a
half minute pop gem. Do you remember the J.A.M.C.? That's kind of what it sounds like.
For fans of music that sounds like Radiohead, then you should listen to track 4, "Sailing to
Byzantium", which is eerie and includes potentially political lyrics about waking dumb fucks
up.
Parts of the song "Clear Island" are sort of a hip-hop party rock thing. "Houseclouds" is
sort of hip-hop when it starts out, but a lot more mellow than the aforementioned "Clear
Island".
The vocals on "Pure Unevil" sound a little like Paul from the band Interpol, who Liars will
be touring with. The other elements of the song don't sound much like Interpol or Joy
Division for that matter.
I don't want to pick this apart song by song, so I'll just say most of the other songs seem
to carry the space/drone aesthetic over from last year's release, "Drum's Not Dead".
9.4/10
Dr C
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STEREOGUM EXCLUSIVE
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