Liars

Their effervescent debut album, They Threw Us All In Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top (Gern Blandsten, 2001), was a festival of hostile vocals and gargantuan rhythms, running the gamut from the ska-like pace of Grown Men Don't Fall In The River Just Like That to the grotesque rap-metal syncopation of Loose Nuts On The Velodrome. The feverish and abrasive approach yields a quintessential funk-punk dance, Mr Your On Fire Mr, slightly reggae-fied and scarred by electronic dissonances. It isn't all fury and pungency, though. The same means are used to craft the neurotic Nothing Is Ever Lost Or Can Be Lost My Science Friend and to sculpt the eight-minute psychological nightmare of This Dust Makes That Mud, a post-psychedelic jam that smoothly careens through vocal psychodrama, tribal drumming and sampled voices before decaying into an endless loop of shrill guitar notes (that goes on 22 minutes but could go on forever).

Having lost the rhythm section, the Liars turned to a less disco-friendly and more experimental sound on They Were Wrong So We Drowned (Mute, 2004), inspired by the witch trials of the 16th century. Only There's Always Room on the Broom, a grotesque dance-rock a` la Pere Ubu, harkens back to the previous album's lighter mood. Broken Witch, reminiscent of Violent Femmes' demented roots-rock and of Virgin Prunes' tribal pagan rock, Hold Hands and It Will Happen Anyway, a demonic distorted pow-wow, We Fenced Other Houses with the Bones of Our Own, an ethereal chant/exorcism over thin industrial rhythm, They Don't Want Your Corn They Want Your Kids, a childish danse macabre with fibrillating synthesizer, the funereal closer Flow My Tears the Spider Said, as well as the best of the brief surreal intermezzos (Steam Rose From The Lifeless Cloak and Read the Book That Wrote Itself), lean towards the darker side of things, eerie, haunting and ghostly. This is a different project from the one that debuted three years earlier, a bit sloppy, but still an intriguing one.

The progression towards a more abstract sound, far removed from the archetypes, continued and possibly culminated with Drum's Not Dead (Mute, 2006), a work that blended an expressionist vein and a surrealist vein (coincidentally, the band had just relocated to Germany). The expressionist act was bookended by the extroverted and suspenseful overture Be Quiet Mt Heart Attack for deranged guitar drones over fluctuating drums and ghostly vocals (that ends abruptly just when it was beginning to make sense), and the subliminally epic closer The Other Side of Mt Heart Attack, a ballad that grafts Brian Eno's alien pop music onto Lou Reed's decadent pessimism. The ecstatic suspended chant of Drum Gets a Glimpse transitions into the surrealist agenda, with Let's Not Wrestle Mt Heart Attack (all rhythmic tension and warped vocal harmonies) and A Visit From Drum (tribal beats, drugged whispers and random noises) leading into the bizarre electrified landscape of Drum and the Uncomfortable Can, scoured by trotting percussion and robotic voices. In between the Liars pen vignettes, or, better, evanescent mirages, that don't quite seem interested in becoming music, like the ghostly fairy tale It Fit When I Was A Kid and the pulsating but otherwise uneventful Hold You Drum and the slow-motion singalong The Other Side of Mt Heart Attack; an attitude that becomes terminal with the static instrumental It's All Blooming Now Mt Heart Attack. A sense of alienation exhudes from the anemic soundscapes that the Liars concoct for their senseless lullabies. The Liars remain a band of mediocre musicianship (vocalist, guitarist and rhythm section are hardly virtuosi) but with a strong vision that is evolving faster than the musical universe around them.

The Liars retreated from their abstract peaks back towards a more earthly sound on Liars (Mute, 2007). The album flexes its rock muscles in Plaster Casts of Everything (pounding drums, looping bass riff, fibrillating guitar), Freak Out, a Cramps-ian voodoo dance, and Clear Island (a pseudo-rap rant over a folkish bacchanal). The spectrum was broad, as the album ranged from the dilated Indian litany over syncopated electronic beats of Houseclouds to the spaced-out industrial music of Leather Prowler, from the noisy dirge of What Would They Know (littered with dissonant clangors) to the chaotic Syd Barrett-ian lullaby of Pure Unevil.

(Written by Jakub Krawczynski)
In 2006, Liars bassist Pat Noecker left the band and, along with Anna Barie (vocals, guitar) and drummer Ted McGrath (who was later replaced by Bill Salas) formed These Are Powers. They debuted with Terrific Seasons (Hoss, 2007) and followed it up with Taro Tarot (Hoss, 2008) and All Aboard Future (Dead Oceans, 2009).

Tradotto da stefanopertile@libero.it

I Liars, guidati dall' australiano Angus Andrew alla voce e dal chitarrista Aaron Hemphill,si sono formati a New York per suonare musica dance-punk.

Il loro effervescente album di debutto, They Threw Us All In Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top (Gern Blandsten, 2001), era un festival di vocals ostili e ritmiche gargantuesche che si estendevano su una gamma che andava dal passo ska di Grown Men Don't Fall In The River Just Like That , al grottesco rap-metal sincopato di Loose Nuts On The Velodrome. L’approccio febbrile ed abrasivo produce una quintessenziale dance funk-punk, Mr Your On Fire Mr, leggermente reggata e sfregiata da dissonanze elettroniche. Non è tutta furia ed asprezza però. Gli stessi mezzi sono impiegati per modellare la nevrotica Nothing Is Ever Lost Or Can Be Lost My Science Friend e per scolpire l’incubo psicologico di otto minuti This Dust Makes That Mud, una jam post-psichedelica che sbanda calma tra uno psicodramma vocale, un battito selvaggio e delle voci campionate, prima di declinare in un loop senza fine di stridenti note di chitarra (che continua per 22 minuti ma potrebbe andare avanti per sempre).

Dopo aver perduto la sezione ritmica i Liars hanno virato verso sonorità meno disco e più sperimentali con They Were Wrong So We Drowned (Mute, 2004), ispirato dalla caccia alle streghe del sedicesimo secolo. Solo There's Always Room on the Broom torna sui passi dell’umore più leggero dell’album precedente. Broken Witch, le eteree We Fenced Other Houses with the Bones of Our Own, They Don't Want Your Corn They Want Your Kids, la strumentale Read the Book That Wrote Itself, così come la funeraria Flow My Tears the Spider Said, si affacciano sul lato più oscuro delle cose, misterioso, ossessionante e spettrale. E’ un progetto diverso da quello del debutto di tre anni prima, ma ancora intrigante.

La progressione verso un suono più astratto, ben lontano dagli archetipi, continua ed in qualche modo culmina con Drum's Not Dead (Mute, 2006), un lavoro che mescola una vena surrealista ed una espressionista. La parte espressionista è rappresentata con l’estroversa e sospesa ouverture Be Quiet Mt Heart Attack, con squilibrati mormorii di chitarra che si stendono su una batteria fluttuante e dei vocals spettrali, e la subliminalmente epica The Other Side of Mt Heart Attack, una ballata che trapianta la pop-music aliena di Brian Eno sul pessimismo decadente di Lou Reed. La dolente Drum Gets a Glimpse segna la transizione al surrealismo, con l’enfasi ritmica ed i sottofondi orditi di Let's Not Wrestle Mt Heart Attack e A Visit From Drum si impianta nella terra bizzarra di Drum and the Uncomfortable Can.