Liars - the "Liars" era

[jaxxalude]

PITCHFORK

Liars Get to Work on Next Album
"Get ready for our new record, rub your palms, download some porn, light a candle, cause we, are like a train, out of control, with no brakes."

Liars' Julian Gross took to the band's MySpace blog yesterday with ramblings on topics ranging from espresso and fried chicken to his recent cover design work and the recording of the follow-up to Drum's Not Dead.

That's right, Gross and Aaron Hemphill recently traveled to Berlin to record with frontman Angus Andrew for three weeks, though that's about all the info he gave. He did, however, write that the new tracks have "a chilled out vibe." No title, release date, or tracklist yet, but considering how quickly Liars are getting back into it, we're hardly complaining.

Gross also recently designed artwork for the Blood Brothers and Sean Na Na. The Blood Brothers artwork, which Gross says is "kinda childlike and cute and lovelorn," is for their new tour poster and the "Set Fire to the Face on Fire" and "Laser Life" singles. There are no specifics about what exactly he designed for Sean Na Na, but the band's label, Dim Mak, does have some shirts for sale with his designs.

Gross ended the post with a particularly inspiring parting word: "Get ready for our new record, rub your palms, download some porn, light a candle, cause we, are like a train, out of control, with no brakes."

Thanks to reader Matthew Krenning for the tip. The full text of Gross' fairly entertaining post appears below in unedited form. A short follow-up post explains that Andrew is taking antibiotics for a pretty heavy illness. Get well soon, Angus!

"let your shoulder lean

back on the blog.
so new news would be Aaron and I just got back from Berlin. we spent about 3 weeks there recording our new record. yes, you heard correct. are you running around in circles now, screaming out the window, making us fried chicken with collard greens and then sending it to us over night so the chicken stays crunchy in gratitude for us gettin down to business? well you should. or not i guess. isn't it illegal to send fried chicken?
but in anycase, we layed down some tracks with a chilled out vibe. then angus got sick, and me and aaron went back to LA and didn;t get sick. (see angus, it's all in your head.) i mean me and angus shared a bong the whole time, thats like seriously making out for a month, always having each others tounges in each others mouth. yet i am fit as a fiddle, strong as an ox, chubby like manatee yet sexy like a horse.
how about those pictures of the tiger and the orangatan? so cute right?
ok what else? i been doing some more design work for the blood brothers. go buy their records. i did 'set fire...' single, the new tour poster and will be sending the art off for 'laser life' tomorrow. i tried making both singles kinda cohesive (sp?). but not sure if i am losing my edge. or just becoming kinda soft in my old age. both the single and the poster (which i like) are not super 'tuff'. they are kinda childlike and cute and lovelorn . well i hope they like the new one. they put this trust in me to just do it and turn it in, no like sending it to them and getting the o.k first. which i was thinking about. that is kinda crazy. i love those guys (really, like family.) and I dont want to dissapoint. they put a lot of trust in me. isn;t that nice? so go see them play in your city. if you haven;t already had the pleasure of seeing them live.
i also just did the design for Har Mar Superstars new/old band Sean Na Na. have to say i was kinda proud of this design. go peep it. on Dim Mak (which i did some shirts for. go buy them also.)
this is long. i havent eatin' anything yet today. just a nice cappucino from our amazing espresso machine that Pats (rad) dad got him. your worried about our grind you say? don't be, we have our own super grinder. tamp the grounds in the basket at 30 pounds of pressure. should take 6 seconds before the shot comes out in a steady, but kinda studdered flow. let flow for no longer than 12 seconds. and then yum.
so i go now. get ready for our new record, rub your palms, download some porn, light a candle, cause we, are like a train, out of control, with no brakes."

[joker]

Cool. "Drum's Not Dead" was really solid, so I'll have to check this out.

[busyboy]

Liars' Fourth Album Revealed!
Mister, You're Prolific, Mister!

It's been mere months since we last pored over the MySpace blog of art-punk outfit Liars, gleaning what we could about their work on the follow up to last year's impressionistic Drum's Not Dead.

But, thanks to some far-less cryptic information delivered in the form of a press relase just delivered to the Pitchfork news team, we're up on all things Angus, and we can finally get back to finding a place for Rihanna in our Top 8.

On August 28, the folks at Mute will release Liars' Liars, the band's fourth long-player. Yes, a self-titled album from the band that brought you They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top and They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. (Unfortunately, their first choice of a new album title, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, was taken.)

This album is, apparently, Angus Andrew's Neil Young moment, if this press release quote is to be believed: "I'd never felt like a songwriter 'til this album... [and] if you said I'd be playing guitar solos, I'd have called you a liar."

So that's the "chilled out vibe" they muttered about on last check, eh? Maybe John Denver's a more apt signifier than Mr. Young.

Liars will come three ways: on a CD, a slab of albino vinyl, and through the magic of computer technology. The tracklist is posted below; you'll note the utter lack of longwinded statements-as-titles this time out, a trick Modest Mouse can apparently keep for themselves.

Also, Liars freaks not already up on the free track posted as part of the Warm & Scratchy comp should click accordingly.

Liars:

01 Plaster Casts of Everything
02 Houseclouds
03 Leather Prowler
04 Sailing to Byzantium
05 What Would They Know
05 Cycle Time
06 Freak Out
07 Pure Unevil
08 Clear Island
09 The Dumb in the Rain
10 Protection

[busyboy]

Stream first single "Plaster Casts of Everything" here.

[busyboy]

The album leaked last Tuesday.

[busyboy]

Stereogum's Premature Evaluation...

Liars - Liars

Unlike Liars' last two albums, this new self-titled collection drops an overriding concept, unless it's love, youth, the ocean, and summertime nostalgia. More immediate and emotionally raw than past work, Liars' trim, submerged, clattering tracks aren't Drum's Not Dead epic or as percussively ragamuffin as They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. Instead, the eleven bits 'n' pieces locate a gorgeous middle, affixing They Threw Us All In A Trench's dance-punk to darker post-Kraut atmospherics. Think about "The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack"'s wistfulness spun with crushing phase, heavy fuzz, lots of drums. There's a suctioned, claustrophobic, a.m.-radio atmosphere a la some no-waving "Remember (Walking In The Sand)," wall-of-sound Spector. Seriously.

The cascading 'n' cutting "Plaster Casts of Everything" creates the perfect, restless opening, Angus Andrews' yowling "I wanna run away/I wanna bring you, too" all "Thunder Road"-like. It's far from the only rock rager: Two-and-a-half-minute psych-pop nugget "Freak Out" rolls into on a serious Ramones/Kicking Giant surf punk kick…. Let the top down! (Slower, ghostly "What Would They Know" manages a similar feel with more Jesus & Mary Chain results.) Also keeping speed, "Houseclouds" is a teenage pill-dropping anthem that pulses with disco high notes and skittering electro-drums; "Cycle Time" layers Andrews' falsetto ("You touched my hand/That's when I born") over a chanted background, feedbacking guitar riffs, and staccato, half-speed drums that flop to hooky rhythms alongside soaring harmonies; and the clamoring "Clear Island" makes like a speedier, more on-target "It Fit When I Was A Kid" (vocal chant, drumstick work).

These rollers collide with slinky ambience. The creepy, distorto "Leather Prowler" (check the zombie-sung echo-canyon vocals) is as underwater as it gets; the Yeats/boat-dropping "Sailing To Byzantium" drifts on a jaunty falsetto, lulling white-noise waves, layered percussion, and, again, dub-like funhouse synthesizers. "Pure Unevil" takes pop and sprinkles it with oilcan tribal drumming and layers of overstuffed, soft feedback.

All this beachfront rock/balladeering leads to coming-of-age finale, "Protection." On it, pensive electro-drums and melodic keyboards frame a hazy storyline (lifeguards, cave-sneaking, oceanside pot smoking, Polaroids, learning how to drink) that goes from naive perfection ("When you close your eyes / I don't need protection") to darkness/loss, a questioning present, and hope for a less-golden, more realistic future. You almost wonder if the album isn't self-titled, per say, but instead deals with the "liars" all of us become when things don't work out as planned, promised are broken, etc.

Karen O admitted recently that she was crying in the "Maps" video because her then boyfriend, Andrews, for whom she'd written the song, had shown up late to the shoot and she was about to head out on tour. Until now we'd never really thought of the lanky Australian as romantic – but damn if Liars doesn't cast a bewitching, elegiac spell. So yeah, we understand, Karen: Dude not only makes hearts flutter, Liars are also the only interesting high-profile band remaining from that bygone 2002 Brooklyn post-punk revival. Yeah, summer lovin', happened so fast.

Liars is out 8/28 on Mute.

[jaxxalude]

LIARS "Plaster Casts Of Everything"

[busyboy]

Liars
Liars



In the Strokes-stoked New York of 2001, Brooklyn-based Liars could do no wrong. Aussie-born beanpole and frontman Angus Andrew was one half of the city's indie power couple with Karen O and their relationship was the subject of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' hit 'Maps'.

In fact, Andrew's appearance at the video shoot after a three-hour delay even resulted in his soon to be ex-girlfriend's famous tears, such was O's emotional state by the time of his eventual arrival. His band's debut album, 'They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top', was punk-funk perfection, but it was the 30-minute closer, 'This Dust Makes That Mud', that was more indicative of where Liars were heading.

Sure enough, following the departure of their rhythm section, they decamped to the New Jersey woods and recorded a defiantly unfunky concept album about witches - 2004's 'They Were Wrong, So We Drowned' - which scared off most of their original fans but cast a spell over plenty of new ones. In 2006, following yet another move, this time to Berlin, Liars released 'Drum's Not Dead'. It was a concept album which revolved around two characters called Drum and Mt Heart Attack and it was filled with spooky atonal noise and visceral tribal drumming punctuated by the odd moment of great beauty. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, each track came with not one but three videos. It should've been a pretentious load of old tosh, but it was incredible, the sort of album that Sonic Youth (sadly) don't make any more.

All of which makes this, Liars' fourth album, more surprising. From the moment you set eyes on the black and white photo on the cover, it's obvious that simplicity is the name of the game; there are no half-hour songs, no witches, no grand concepts, there's not even a title, just a collection of 12 songs. And it's that last bit that is the real surprise, these are proper songs, with regular titles. Quite a few even have tunes. You could accuse Liars of abandoning all of their high-art concepts and otherworldly thoughts so they could secure their place on a tour of America's enormodomes with Interpol. Well, you could if this album wasn't so perfect.

Album opener and recent single 'Plaster Casts Of Everything' is a runaway rollercoaster of riffs, the shuffling 'Houseclouds' sounds like Public Image Limited if they had been from Madchester and 'Sailing To Byzantium' could be said to invent punk-funk-prog-rock. 'Cycle Time' has probably necked more drugs than a Tour de France rider, 'Freak Out' drags The Jesus And Mary Chain of 'Psychocandy' all the way from East Kilbride to the former East Berlin and the New Order-meets-Mercury Rev closer 'Protection' can be described as 'epic'. But at no point here do Liars compromise their fearless, experimental approach. And that's a great concept.

Nathaniel Cramp

[busyboy]

Out today in the US!

Good reviews so far:



www.metacritic.com/music/artists/liars/liars