KeyCMND.com: Liars
Published by: KeyCMND.com
Date: February 28, 2010
Format: Web (www.keycmnd.com)
Type: Music Review
Liars – Sisterworld
With Sisterworld, the fifth full-length album from Liars, the band continues in its shape-shifting ways, and delivers a collection of songs that sound unlike anything else it has previously released. The massive percussion of Drum’s Not Dead is there, though a few steps out of the spotlight, and the angular bite of They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top still lingers about in certain places. Sisterworld is a moody, hazy, and occasionally dense album, and, as per usual, serves as the band’s next sidestep in a strange direction.
No matter what musical style Liars adopt, the trio consistently concoct themes and stories that serve as the backbone for each record. When making They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, an album based on the stories of German witch trials, the band secluded themselves in a cabin in the woods of rural New Jersey. They wrote and recorded Sisterworld entirely in their current hometown of Los Angeles, and attempted to capture and express a realm of their own making. The album’s press release mentions “discarded dreams amassed in LA,” and, at the core of it, that is exactly what it sounds like; a collection of dreams.
Whether the songs are jarringly abrasive (like in the murderous paranoia of “Scarecrows on a Killer Slant” and on proto-punk anthem “The Overachievers”) or eerily muted (like the awkwardly off-key sounds of “Drop Dead” and haunting piano melody in “Drip”), there is a murky quality in all of them that mirrors a dizzying montage in some art-house film. The constant back and forth between loud and quiet, along with the droning qualities of Angus Andrew’s vocals, creates an unnerving atmosphere that exists somewhere between this world and another plane. At times, this other realm can be an interesting place, but it can also be the worst place for a song—or an entire album, for that matter—to reside.
Sisterworld could never suffice as background noise. If you put it on while working, or cooking, or doing anything besides only listening to the album, you could easily forget it’s there. The whole album is detached from the usual realities of contemporary music, and exists in a strange and somewhat uninviting world where melody is second to mood. It demands your full attention, which is no easy feat without hooks, verses, or choruses to keep you interested. Liars accomplished what it set out to do on its new album, and created its own place. It just may not be inhabitable by many.
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