Pretentious bands like to call themselves “unclassifiable” and claim that they “don’t conform to genre parameters,” but usually when the edgiest of the edgy start to play, they merely sound like the current indie flavor. Liars, however, are a band who routinely moves away from the genres critics pigeonhole them into (‘dance punk,’ ‘post-punk revival,’ the totally fake ‘kraut punk’) and never brag about it. They’ve never had enough of an ego to say “we are a band like no other” but every few years they release an album that builds off their influences rather than steal from them.
Their new album, Sisterworld, alternates its tone between two feelings: creeped out and angry as hell. There aren’t as many noise freak-outs here as you’d expect if you’ve heard the band’s past work, but when Liars want to – they dial everything into the red and singer Angus Andrew screams his falsetto away. The slower, sometimes orchestral pieces that make up the rest of the album are beautiful but totally unsettling.
Sisterworld opens with “Scissor,” an initially a capella song that draws the listener in with quiet, multi-tracked vocals. At the 50 second mark, minimal piano, bass guitar and violin accompaniment are introduced. At 1:45, it’s all steamrolled over by the old Liars— the ones the press used to call “noise terrorists.” “Scissor” is followed by three less-focused atmospheric tracks that wander around for ten and a half minutes before letting the album continue on its noisy way.
On the first listen through, the peak-to-valley drop off in tempo hurts. It’s a frustrating moment comparable to a car exiting the autobahn to drive through a retirement home parking lot. Subsequent trips through the Sisterworld reveal that tracks two, three and four are well-structured and offer as much depth as any of the album’s more aggressive tracks. The songs clearly belong where they are, how they are, but it takes time to respect that and not see them as buzz kills.
The album’s other seven songs follow the same bang-whimper-whimper-bang pacing as the first four while Andrew sings about cold-blooded murder, setting fires, fleeing crimes and hiding bodies. Lyrically, the band is essentially running through the Insane Clown Posse list of ways to scare parents and excite their delinquent children. What make Liars’ tales of hobo slaughter work here is the textured creepiness of the music, which includes the most sinister-sounding bassoon ever set to tape.
Sisterworld is a grower. The problem for many will come when they don’t want to give it time to warm up. It’s too easy to listen to a four-minute long ambient yawn like “Drip,” hit ‘next track,’ and then never return to find the song’s brilliance.
- DJ Alex Rudolph
