LIARS
LIARS
MUTE
WORDS BY: AW HENDERSON

To quote the opening of David Bohm's review of Blueberry Boat:

Um, yeah. OR, they could do that.

Each album from New York's Liars, more than any other band, requires that you consider it in the context of their previous output. We Were Wrong, So We Drowned wouldn't have been nearly the controversial zig-zag if it hadn't been for the excitement stemming from They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top. Neither would last year's excellent Drum's Not Dead have been such a surprising success without the generally assented, though woefully incorrect notion of the failure of We Were Wrong to deliver on the promise of the debut. That brings us to their fourth offering, Liars. Read simplicity into the title if you must, but don't judge the album by its cover; this record is as dense as any they've released. Granted, Liars seems a straightforward statement at first, with recognizable song structures and real beats as opposed to hypnotic rhythms, but I assure you, this is not rock and roll.

The album starts out more strongly than any of its predecessors, with distorted bass punching through like a heart attack alongside guitars going off in every direction. A power plant is burning to the ground somewhere, and all its emergency alarm systems are channeled into the last half of "Plaster Casts of Everything," out of which the falsetto angels of nuclear waste rise and sing backup. At this point, it's still sorta plausible that the band is only trying dig up the trench from 2001, with a definite level of aggression not seen since They Threw Us and pummeling drums to boot. Fans with their fists in the air and their dicks in their hands will feel silly when "Houseclouds" comes on, though, as the final soaring guitar solo of "Plaster Casts" is siphoned off into what is an undeniably funky shuffle of percussion and keyboard. The song is supported by a constant lower-register bass buzz that lends an ominous dark shade to what is otherwise one of the catchiest Liars cuts to date. That darkness creeps a little further up on the appropriately-titled "Leather Prowler," which is surely the soundtrack to some poor child's nightmare somewhere. The only guitar discernible as such found here would sound right at home on a Jandek record, but even that is eclipsed by the wailing metallic screeches that pile up near the end of the song.

If it sounds like I'm describing completely separate albums, if not bands, then I'm doing my job. "Sailing to Byzantium" throws the disc into another abrupt turn, sounding at first like an outtake from one of Radiohead's calmer post-OK Computer jam sessions before twisting itself into a lachrymose pastiche of soul and sample-based hip hop. The falsettos are back, swaying to the dour guitar chords and mournful keyboard melodies like weeping willows in a rainstorm. "What Would They Know" retreads a little ground, with discordant stabs of guitar and swathes of dissonance cloaking vocals that are content to sit and wallow in their own misery. The song comes closest to greatness when the spirit of Lonesome Crowded West-era Modest Mouse rides in on the back of strummed and antsy guitar, but the moment quickly fades out, and the song ends with disinterest bordering on apathy. This deflating sense of deceleration is quickly reversed by "Cycle Time," the shortest track on the album and a definite mover. From the propulsive title to the repeated shouts of what sounds like "Run!" in the background, "Cycle Time" pushes things forward efficiently . The song is over in just two minutes, with 20 seconds of feedback to mark the halfway point of the album.

From here on out, the show is much less schizophrenic, and slightly less interesting. "Freak Out" is the Liars doing the Pixies; "Pure Unevil" is the Liars doing Animal Collective; "Clear Island" is the Liars 2007 doing Liars 2001. It's a little disappointing to encounter this increased level of stylistic consistency when so far the theme of the album is the lack of any trends. Given that the first three Liars discs are inarguably enhanced by their thematic cohesion, Liars' sweaty sprawl can be seen as a theme of its own; subsequently, the relatively unvaried last four songs (minus album closer "Protection," which is awesome) seem like a failure to stick to the game plan, which is to have no game plan at all. On an album full of such illogical changes in direction, the back half of Liars feels too straight-laced. This is a criticism that most albums don't even earn, though; Liars and Liars both prove that they can take their sound almost any direction they want to without sacrificing a trace of what makes their sound so distinctive. While Liars never quite reaches the teeth-gritting angst of Trench, the brain-bruising pantomime of They Were Wrong or the transcendent trance'n'dance of Drum's Not Dead, it's clearly a significant entry into the canon of the 2000s, and an easy contender for Album Your Parents Will Never Understand.