Liars weren’t out to prove everyone wrong with their fifth full-length album, but they kind of did anyway. The band, currently made up of Aaron Hemphill (percussion, guitar, synth), Julian Gross (drums) and Angus Andrew (vocals/guitar) released their new album Sisterworld on March 9th, 2010, under Mute Records.
In a press release, the band stated that, “Sisterworld is Liars’ own space, completely devoid of influence, somewhere remote from the false promises and discarded dreams amassed in LA. In it, Liars explore the underground support systems created to deal with loss of self to society.” Regardless of what that means (your guess is as good as mine), you now have Sisterworld.
In several songs, particularly in the album’s premier track “Scissor,” we experience a slow, anticipatory quietness that comes to fruition in an explosion of sorts, with clanging drums, loud guitars and, on some tracks like “Goodnight Everything,” even horns that sound a little pissed off.
Tracks like “The Overachievers,” begin and remain strong with a gritty, dirty punk sound and a beat that is overall dark but still totally danceable.
The band came about during the post-punk revival scene of New York in 2001 and their first album met with considerable local buzz. On subsequent albums, their style slowly began to morph into a more experimental style without straying too far from the band’s original sound.
While the mildly uncomfortable feeling stays with you from the first track to the last, Sisterworld showcases a track consistency that strengthens the sound of the album as a whole and makes it effectively cohesive, rather than the stuttery up-and-down rollercoaster of sounds Liars fans may be used to.
The first album I heard by the band was their 2003 release, They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, which showed the band moving in a decidedly art-punk, experimental direction (and was also produced with TV on the Radio’s David Andrew Sitek.)
If you’re that semi-shy kid at the party who refuses to dance unless he’s good and wasted, or if you like listening to an album that makes you pound your wrists on your steering wheel and simultaneously creeps you out a little (in a good way,) then Sisterworld is definitely an album to add to your collection.
