Track Listing

1. Plaster Casts of Everything
2. Houseclouds
3. Leather Prowler
4. Sailing To Byzantium
5. What Would They Know
6. Cycle Time
7. Freak Out
8. Pure Unevil
9. Clear Island
10. The Dumb In the Rain
11. Protection

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31678 in Music
• Released on: 2007-08-28
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
Liars have never been a band comfortable with staying in one place for very long. Geographically, personally and most of all musically, each successive album that they release comes with a new agenda, a new heritage, a new set reference points and a new way of thinking about music. After the multimedia multitasking of 2006's Drums Not Dead, Angus Andrew, Aaron Hemphill and Julian Gross have returned with their most stripped back and direct album yet.

Amazon.com
When your debut record breaks musical rules faster than the world can make them, what do you do next? For Liars' singer Angus Andrew, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Hemphill, and drummer Julian Gross, the immediate answer came in the form of narrative experiment (2004's They Were Wrong...) and multi-media exploration (2006's Drums Not Dead). On the heels of these, Liars' eponymous record dives headlong into digestible, radio-length pop and rock structures, made all the more listener-friendly courtesy of mixing touches by longtime Erasure/Depeche Mode producer Gareth Jones. The blistering riff of lead single "Plaster Casts of Everything" opens into danceable electro-workouts ("Houseclouds," "Freak Out") and straightforward rock numbers ("Cycle Time," "Clear Island") galore. Make no mistake: Liars retains every last acrid drop of the feral energy that made the band famous, but replete with ubiquitous pop elements--verses and bridges and choruses, oh my!--Liars' new aesthetic bares an approachable underbelly with a surprisingly humane, almost welcoming, sheen. Floating along on Andrews' falsetto, the organ-drenched closer, "Protection," sounds almost tender, leaving the impression that the future may yet unmask the fact that Liars' veneer of misanthropic noise was, from the outset, always the band's ultimate deception. --Jason Kirk

Customer Reviews

Antisocial Security Blanket
("Liars" by Liars)

Liars are one restless rock band. After the noisy, fractured dance punk of their debut, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, leader Angus Andrew replaced the rhythm section and came back with the even noisier and in no way danceable They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. As if that didn't alienate many of their fans, for album #3 they took another sharp left turn with the impressionistic Krautrock of Drum's Not Dead (CD + DVD). The only clear direction they were on was more art, less rock. Now here we are at the self-titled album #4, and while their artsy impulses are anything but gone, they've reasserted the R-O-C-K for their most accessible work since the debut.

Keep in mind when I say "accessible," for this band that's a relative term. While this album, with its primitivist punk rhythms, bent psych rock guitars and digital screwing around, can possibly be enjoyed by more or less "normal" folks, this is still music that speaks, sings, chants, screams, stutters and mutters to the freak in all of us. In many ways, this is music for people who have no friends, and don't really want any. The monomanical pounding of "Plaster Casts of Everything" may inspire some fist-pumping and head-banging, but its falsetto vocals and general atmosphere of scuzz make it seem unlikely. "Houseclouds" brings in a bit of off kilter funk and keyboards that make it sound like a diseased Radiohead song. Meanwhile, "Leather Prowler" has a rhythm partly composed of what sounds like an (obscure reference alert!) exploding new building and "Freak Out" has already inspired many comparisons to Psychocandy-era Jesus & Mary Chain, with its bouncy melody and feedback-drenched guitars. Those with the fortitude to stick with the rest of the album are then rewarded with "Protection," which is (gasp!) an actual song, with a chorus and everything! Of course, the whole album is also swathed in all kinds of echo and murk--picture a rabid demon dog coming at you from out of a dense fog--so it's not exactly recommended for fans of what passes for most indie rock these days. Clocking in at a brisk 43 minutes, "Liars" may not be a long trip, but it's certainly strange.

If, however, you're one of those rare people who nest in noise and are soothed by pychosis, you need look no further. This album is the hard stuff, ladies, gents and those undetermined, and like the climax of Tod Browning's immortal Freaks, it may even be transformative.

The Liars Play Nice
The best thing that ever happened to Liars was the one star review of They Were Wrong So We Drowned they received from Rolling Stone Magazine. What better way to promote yourself as the punk rock band of the new millennia than receive a devastatingly negative review from the magazine tailor made for the culturally shallow petit-bourgeois that choke our cities with the treeless wasteland of suburbia. Rolling Stone Magazine, who needs them. This is the same magazine that put The Eagles on the cover decades after they're relevant, if they ever were relevant. This is the same magazine who, like most of its readers I'm sure, discovered itself during the culturally vibrant time of the sixties and has spent the last forty years skimming pop culture chum looking for the most shallow musical "artists." This is the magazine that caters to Starbucks shopping masses who yearn for the convenience of picking up the latest Jasan Mraz, Carly Simon or Michael Bolton while simultaneously buying overpriced cappafrappalattes. When Rolling Stone published that review a very clear wall was erected and edict imposed. Play by our rules or else you don't get in.

So naturally the Liars went on to record the equally confounding Drum's Not Dead.

After giving Rolling Stone the middle finger twice, it appears that Liars are ready to play nice with their audience. Their fourth release, given the swanky title Liars, is their most accessible album since their debut. Of course, its accessibility is mixed with the confrontational personality of the band. One cannot help but imagine a grin on lead singer Angus Andrew's face when he delivers the faux-metal line "sweet massacre of death" during the album opener "Plaster Casts of Everything." This mischievous irony is heightened by the fact the momentum of the song hits a wall mid-song only to accelerate to full speed with an even more anthemic refrain. Liars make it clear that even though they're writing actual songs this time they're still not playing nice.

I'm tempted to dissect the album into pop songs (or at least pop songs by the Liar's standards) and percussion experiments that recall their last two albums, kind of like how Bowie's Berlin albums were divided between lyrical songs and instrumentals. About half of the songs are the experimental Liars where they treat every instrument as if it's a drum. This push-pull tension works wonderfully thanks to some great sequencing. Unlike so many bands the Liars don't frontload the album, and after the two requisite singles as album openers, there are three challenging tracks in a row. By evenly distributing the swag, they've made sure the listener doesn't get bored by the half-hour mark.

Many of the catchier numbers sound like old favorites blown out through the Liar's bullhorn. "Houseclouds" sounds like an electroclash Prince. The fuzz of "Freak Out" is reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr. The stabbing guitar and breathy vocals of "Pure Unevil" recalls New Order. Needless to say, the breadth of the sound coming from this album is impressive. At times Liars sounds like an album at a forked road. One direction is the murky swamp of experimentation obscured from the likes of lesser critics like Rolling Stone by a gripping canopy. The other path leads them out in the open with all the other indie-rock artists that have made their way onto soundtracks of quirky independent comedies. Or, perhaps the Liars are coming from the opposite direction, arriving at a point where both sides of their personality meet rather than diverge. I hope that this album is really a reconciliation between the inviting Liars and the Liars who don't have a problem telling Rolling Stone to screw off.

I'm convinced...
...that the Liars could gargle water and beat two sticks together for 45 minutes and I'd love it. Not one of their albums sounds like any of the others. This one actually goes back a step and adds a little bit more structure, if that's what you'd call it, but still continues down the Liars weird twisted path of obscurity. This is definitely not for everyone. Unless you're ready to release your inner freak.