Liars - 'Liars'
(Mute U.S., 2007)
Rating: 7

Reviewing a Liars album is somewhat of a practice in futility in that the band has seemingly gone out of its way to defy definition in cutting a sonic path from their ostensible native soil of New York City (via Australia and the City of Angels) to the backwoods of New Jersey and a transatlantic flirtation with Berlin. Their geographic wanderlust has always come part in proverbial parcel with material that has seemingly occupied the perilous middle ground between brilliance and pretense. The band’s unwillingness or inability to properly plant a flag in either quadrant is once again brought to the forefront with their latest self-titled offering with characteristically mixed results, as Liars alternately transfix and frustrate with the sounds and strains of an album that may just be worth the digestive effort.

     Having formed in 2000, Liars quickly became a part of the NYC vanguard of emerging rock acts that briefly appeared as a new wave conglomerate before splintering into the recesses of their respective creative visions. Few of those bands have proved to be as adventurous and challenging as Liars, as band mainstay (they’ve already switched out a rhythm section) and leader Angus Andrew has consistently followed his muses with little regard for the trajectory of his at times erstwhile fan base. The critical and mainstream reaction has thus been appropriately divided, as Liars have offered a tantalizing mix of straight ahead post-punk missives and prog-art rock immersion that has already produced one concept album (2004’s They Were Wrong, So We Drowned) inspired by the Salem witch trials. Their latest excursion finds them continuing the kind of exploration once undertaken by other famed Gotham natives such as Sonic Youth via a layered mix of dissonant guitar tones and elemental narratives. Among the ringing notes and terse drum beats is an alternately haunting and obtuse underlying ethos that piques an interest while stopping short of full-scale emotional connectivity. Perhaps by design, the album opens with two tracks (Plaster Cast of Everything and Houseclouds) that aptly demonstrate the band’s ability to craft a song that doesn’t sacrifice melody for subversion. It’s tempting to consider these two openers as the cheese in a metaphorical mousetrap set by Andrew, but there is enough evidence sprinkled throughout the rest of the album to suggest that this extended (at least by Liars’ standards) foray into imminently hummable territory is a direction that honestly intrigues the band. True to their form, though, their willingness to take this sonic route does not preclude them from veering into the kinds of areas that punctuate the art rock flourishes featured on earlier releases.

         Whether this willingness to undertake such exploratory measures is more reductive than experimental at this point of their career is mostly rendered moot by the realization that the album’s most resonant moments fully utilize whatever pop influences have permeated the artsy ether that has most recently enveloped Liars and their frontman. While their material may not always have the most inclusive feel, there are plenty of moments, such as the wan falsetto of Sailing to Byzantium and the frenetic Kasabian-like stomp and circumstance of Clear Island, that clearly demonstrate an undeniably deft touch for highlighting the less abstract aspects of the band’s collective vision. Much of what the band does can seem impenetrable, but the glimpses offered by this record most often make the expenditure of energy worthwhile. Liars can exasperate with what can seem like a manufactured aversion to overt populist sentiments, especially in light of the relative ease with which they slip in and out of that particular skin, but their sonic sojourn has yet to become stale. Amidst the contradictory madness remain the remnants of a vibrant method.

- Brant Miles