Thursday, June 21, 2012

#516 Liars - WIXIW

Liars started off with angular dance/post punk, swerved off into batshit wicker absurdity, and then settled into honest to god art rock, garnering acclaim from the indie intelligentsia for their obsession with ambience, tone, and the finer points of every sound, all wielded with creepy, ethereal menace. And that's roughly where we find them here, sounding a bit like late Radiohead's evil twin, drifting even more ethereal, more electronic,  lulling you into nightmare with waterey ambiance that is both disarming and unsettling, snaking into your brain like an infernal used car salesman.

No 1 Against the Rush is the finest example of this approach's strength, as it rides a simple beat, sawtooth arpeggios and a perfect burble-pop loop to pretty post-punk perfection. But the rest is a bit like Steely Dan, empty, or maybe evoking emptiness (credit to Orion for that one), but appealing only intellectually 3.5/5

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