Albums

Liars - They Were Wrong, So We Drowned

Alex Worsnip 23/02/2004

Rating: 2/5

Ah, Liars. They're cool, right? Perfectly right. Only problem is, they sound not too great. Considering their art-punk profile I'd love to like them, but I was highly disappointed when I heard material from their last album, because it sounded utterly ear-bleedingly terrible, and dare I say it, uninteresting. They are so enormously contrived its also funny. Now there is most certainly a time and a place for strange fashion senses. There is a time and a place for long, quirky titles (preferably the nearest Flaming Lips record). But when they are so carbon-copied off whatever's cool at the minute, it seems like an indie elite's happiness but beneath the surface of cool there just isn't any content.

Needless to say the music press love them. And Liars know the music press will love them, because they're just designed that way. Their reviews sound enticing, and evoke haywire acts like Suicide, the Minutemen and early Sonic Youth. Shame that all the songs put together haven't got a fraction of the appeal of the records those bands will be making when their members are in old peoples' homes. Now what shall we call our song? I know! 'If You're A Wizard Then Why Do You Wear Glasses?' And then the next one 'We Fenced The Gardens With The Bones Of Our Own'! And the next one 'They Don't Want Your Corn They Want Your Kids'! Need I go on? You get the idea. Its unbelievably pompous and self-important.

Of course, there's worse stuff out there. Generally, though, this is an mess of broken-up beats, bleeps and guitars. It does have appeal sometimes, but it drags and they frequently descend into simply boring, endless, empty beat-type noise. It could be brilliant if they learned how to edit and lost their pomposity. But now its the wrong side of the genius/irritant line.