The Liars - Sisterworld

Band: The Liars
Album: Sisterworld
Label: Mute
Year: 2010
Rating: 84%

The Liars have been one of the past decade's most inscrutable practitioners of experimental rock. Like former tour-mates Radiohead, they've demonstrated a steadfast determination to follow their muse, including left-field stylistic departures and frequently relocating to other continents to write and record. Texture and rhythm have remained at the forefront of the band's sound throughout, with front man Angus Andrew's heavily processed vocals (bearing more than a passing resemblance to those of Thom Yorke) lending the band an unearthly quality. Most importantly, Liars remain stubbornly committed to exploring new sonic turf and topping themselves with each byzantine, heavily-laboured record. Such creative restlessness makes for a body of work which is unpredictable, frequently baffling and consistently rewarding for adventurous listeners.

'Scissors' kicks off the band's fifth album with narcotic chants and the mournful strains of a cello before exploding into a spastic distorto-rock tantrum. The bait-and-switch is nothing new to this band, but this first full band kick is still fantastically exciting. The song alternates placid with punishing without overstaying its welcome, then quickly slides into the pulsing bass and rickety percussion of 'No Barrier Fun.' "I wanna make it up" moans Andrew over music box and violin backing that wouldn't sound out of place on one of A Silver Mt. Zion's records. The atmosphere is unsettling, with the band crafting moody sounds capes over heavily looped and treated instruments and vocals, drawing out the tension over several tracks. Unlike the fantastical sense of child-like wonder that permeates previous records like 2006's awe-inspiring Drum's Not Dead, Sisterworld is sonically ominous and almost uniformly bleak in tone. The band hasn't sounded so dark since 2004's universally misunderstood sophomore effort They Were Wrong So We Drowned, but this time the attack is more focused and married to some excellent songs. The motorik groove of 'Proud Evolution' shows off an astute understanding of krautrock rhythm and the power of sonic minimalism, while penultimate slow-burner 'Goodnight Everything' uses deep brass horns to amplify the grandeur of its droning chords and triumphantly announce the album's climactic final explosion before settling into the dreamy epilogue, "Too Much, Too Much."

Sisterworld is more about dynamic tension than release, but also offers some of the Liars' most pile-driving rockers yet. Few moments in the Liars' schizophrenic catalog can match the vicious animosity of 'Scarecrows On A Killer Slant.' Over a heavily distorted grinding synth, Andrew screams, "Why'd you shoot the mayor with a gun? 'CAUSE HE BOTHERED YOU!!!" before going on to yell some more about standing in the street and killing everyone. Equally enjoyable, 'The Overachievers' sports a mechanized slaughterhouse tumble of a riff that is helped by Andrew's off-kilter yelps and bilesome diatribes.

The Liars have proven themselves once again to be one of the most consistently inventive and original bands in rock. Examined with the benefit of hindsight, the Liars' career arc no longer looks so jarring when viewed through Sisterworld's damaged lens. Much like the band's 2007 eponymous record, Sisterworld forgoes some of the band's earlier experimental dalliances and rewards listeners with some of the most accessible songwriting of the Liars' career. Don't get me wrong, this is a Liars album, and that means you will hear plenty of noises you may be uncomfortable with the first time through. It might not fit your definition of rock or even music at all. That's normal, and no one ever said these guys were all that easy to listen to. But now that the band has learned how to wrap their sound-manipulation experiments around songs that are at least recognizable as such, more new fans should be on board than ever before. The band's charming conviction and dogged determination to sculpt noise and formless texture into integral components of a unified work of art are admirable traits that win bands fans of the rabid variety. With that in mind, the album works as both a consolidation and a continuation of the band's strengths to date, and will appeal to fans new and old.