In an effort to better understand the world in which we live, contemporary media attempt to label and define everything that is created. In the art world, all artists and their work are simply assigned a movement, genre or style. The result of this is a society that expects everything to stay within the walls of its definition and is easily perplexed when something refuses to accept these boundaries.
In certain instances, attempts to deviate from one's prescribed talent can be disastrous — take for example, Michael Jordan's baseball career, Tom Morello's folk moniker, the Nightwatchman, or for that matter, any of the other Rage Against Machine members trying to do something that is not Rage.
But in rare cases, there are artists whose eclectic oeuvres succeed in evading the partitions of categorization and expectation, and the Los Angeles-based band, Liars, is the musical exemplar of this. From the dance-punk of 2001's They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument On Top to the experimental noise of last year's Drum's Not Dead, Liars has repeatedly succeeded in confounding presumption and refusing fixed classification. And accordingly, their latest self-titled endeavor, Liars, has once again found the three-piece band dismissing predictability without sacrificing quality.
"We wanted to write songs that reminded us a little of what it was like to be a teenager," said Angus Andrew, Liars' lead vocalist and guitarist, describing the approach to Liars on the Mute Records Web site. "So pretty much the only preparation we did was going back and listening to the bands we liked when we were kids, stuff like OMD, the Cure and Siouxsie & the Banshees."
Having set their polyrhythmic percussion aside, quenched their thirst for the reverb-drenched drone guitars, and satiated their appetite for kraut-rock, Liars have abandoned the experimentation of Drum's Not Dead and adopted a stripped-down rock sound that seems relatively defined when juxtaposed with the tortuous experimentation of their last album.
The realization of Liars' newfound direction comes pedal to the metal on the album's opener, "Plaster Casts Of Everything." The heavy power chords and pulsating drums give the song an anxious momentum only furthered by Andrew's idiosyncratic and repetitious singing. "I wanna run away/ I wanna bring you to/ Or I'll go out of my mind," wails Andrew in an ominous falsetto over a monolithic rhythm section relentlessly pounding away.
After the angst of "Plaster Casts Of Everything," Liars placate the mood with the album's catchiest and most accessible song, "Houseclouds," a quirky synth-funk jam that calls to mind the synthesizer-laden New Wave of the 1980s or more recently, the eccentric pop of Beck. And herein lies a motif that recurs throughout the album: Liars openly and shamelessly pay homage to their musical precursors and contemporaries by making Liars a collage of the styles of bands that influence them.
Skeletal influences reverberate throughout every song, yet each song is brought to life by Liars' creative re-imagination of these influences. The guitars on the song, "Freak Out," evoke the distorted tone of Jesus and Mary Chain guitarist William Reid. "What Would They Know" gauges the guitar sound of Sonic Youth and even the timbre of Thurston Moore's voice, but pieces these influences together in a way that uniquely sounds like Liars. Because of this, Liars' subtly sounds like something you have heard in a way you have never heard it before.
On some songs, Liars not only draw from the influential bands of their adolescence, but also sing quite directly about their adolescence.
"Aaron [Hemphill] and I wanted to write songs that spoke for themselves in a more visceral way," Andrew said about the writing process with his bandmate on their record label's website. "Like when you're a teenager and things really mean a lot for you in a song." Consequently, Liars' last song, "Protection," is a nostalgic ode to youth. Andrew sings of the insecurity of adolescence as a synthesizer and a simple drumbeat accompany his reminiscence on one of the album's most thoughtful and resonating songs.
Drawing on music and experiences all the way from their adolescence to the present, Liars delicately and brilliantly mix foundation with innovation on Liars. The album illustrates the band's dynamic musical ability, as songs range from hard rock to pop, and their refusal of stylistic stasis. Although this album is not as groundbreaking as 2006's Drum's Not Dead, seeing as it is more retrospective than introspective, it's an album that will keep existing fans interested without alienating new ones. Liars' stylistic ADD keeps their sound constantly evolving without jeopardizing the quality of their music — luckily they have yet to be administered proper medication.
