We're coming up on the 25th anniversary of Liars' classic debut album They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top, an emblematic record from that era of New York rock 'n' roll. A quarter century later, Liars soldier on. For about a decade, Liars have been a solo project for frontman Angus Andrew. So there's only one Liar. When he says that there are plural Liars, he's lying. The last Liars album was The Apple Drop, which came out about five years ago, and now Andrew is coming back with a new one with the vivid title A Ban On Plastic Bag Bans.
Per a press release, Angus Andrew moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan with his wife and daughter a few years ago, and he joined the fight to hold a local packaging factory responsible for the pollutants that it was belching out into the atmosphere. That story went into the creation of A Ban On Plastic Bag Bans, which gets its name from an actual Michigan law. In a press release, Andrew says that the album has "more to do with the perception of things than modern pollution — how these things that can be a constant in your life become sort of ingrained and invisible."
These days, Andrew once again lives in his native Australia, and he recorded the LP in between Australia and the US. He got help from his recent collaborators and touring Liars members, drummer Laurence Pike and multi-instrumentalist Cameron Deyell, and the songs took shape through in-studio improvisations. Lead single "Ice Pick, Kalamazoo" is a skronky, angry piece of work that employs field recordings taken from Kalamazoo. Andrew directed the video himself, and it's comprised entirely of photos that he took at a local No Kings protest. Check it out below, alongside the album tracklist and the dates for Liars' first UK and European tour in more than a decade.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Happy Or Not"
02 "Ice Pick, Kalamazoo"
03 "Laced Plume"
04 "Urgent As Always"
05 "Deep Deeper"
06 "Disaster Tropes"
07 "Beat Creep Some Eyes"
08 "Real Time Trespasser"
09 "SHAME!"
10 "Retention Arc"
11 "Out Of Order"
TOUR DATES:
10/02 - Bucharest, Romania @ Control Club / Opening Party
10/03 - Nantes, France @ Le Lieu Unique
10/05 - Milan, Italy @ Arci Bellezza
10/09 - Kraków, Poland @ Unsound (one-off performance of Drums Not Dead)
10/10 - Belgrade, Serbia @ Changeover Festival
10/12 - Prague, Czech Republic @ Punctum
10/13 - Berlin, Germany @ Neue Zukunft
10/15 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
10/17 - Kortrijk, Netherlands @ Atelier Nooitgedacht
10/18 - Liege, Belgium @ Kultura
10/20 - London, UK @ Moth Club
10/22 - Paris, France @ Boule Noire
10/24 - Copenhagen, Denmark @ Ideal Bar
A Ban On Plastic Bag Bans is out 3/5 on Mute. Pre-order it here.
