After two more guitar-focused albums, 2007’s Liars and 2010’s Sisterworld, the permafrazzled three-piece Liars return with the largely-electronic WIXIW (pronounced ‘Wish You’, since you ask), to be released this June.
Whetting fans’ appetites is the first single “No. 1 Against The Rush” (see above), which drifts in on a burbling lake of electronics. The beat is dry and motorik, and the usually-scuzzy guitars are limited to textured fills and atmospheric vibes. Frontman Angus Andrew sounds pretty chilled; certainly more so than you would if you had recorded an album directly beneath a Los Angeles freeway, in a grimy, vice-ridden subway. There’s a definite link to The Horrors’ “Sea Within A Sea“—it’s there in the rhythm, and in the graceful array of notes played on an analogue synthesizer. The outro finishes what the intro started: highly resonant, percussive pings rattle between the channels while guitar feedback oscillates wildly, bringing the song to a juddering, but not threatening, close.
Here’s hoping there’s still some room on WIXIW for the bloodsucking yuppy vampires of old.
Misplaced Swag 