REVIEW: Liars / Jana Hunter at Le Poisson Rouge, Manhattan, NYC

Angus Andrew swallows a microphone, May 8, 2014 at Le Poisson Rouge, NYC. Photos by Eli Jace.

Liars bring rainbow napalm

to Le Poisson Rouge in Manhattan

  Liars thrashed and burned in psychedelic jolts in one explosion of a set at Le Poisson Rouge in Manhattan this past Thursday, May 8--the first of their two shows in New York. Their performance was quick, to the point, no fussing, no fawning, and now, in retrospect, nothing but a complete blur of colored yarn. The blur is a testament to the ferocity of their onstage antics, but also, my pre-game activities.

  The opening act, Jana Hunter, gave a sparse, calming performance. She sat mid-stage, guitar in lap, with a light cascading upon her silhouette as she sang subdued and vulnerable. Hunter, of Baltimore, and pals with Devendra Banhart, has a meadow-grazing, casual, but stern, sound. She was a perfect contrast to the lambasting sonic stranglehold of Liars.

Jana Hunter.

  Time was not wasted. Liars stepped onto the stage lit in the under-shadow of two bright video screens passing back and fourth intricately laced patterns; colors colliding. The seven-foot-something singer, Angus Andrew, with the top of his head nearly brushing the ceiling, stood head-to-toe in stained white, wearing a face-mask netted together with multi-colored yarn. The same string that's been seen in jumbles and strands in the promotional artwork, and on the cover of Liars' new, seventh album, Mess. 

  The three-piece was scattered into corners of the stage. New drummer Butchy Fuego, also in Boredoms and Pit Er Pat, sat all the way stage-left, while Aaron Hemphill was pushed toward the back right against a video screen. Andrew filled the center of the stage with the energetic force of his flailing limbs. 

Aaron Hemphill wondering exactly where he is at the moment.

  The show began with the pummeling space odyssey "Pro Anti Anti" off the new record, then went to "Mask Maker," the eerily deranged, but drunkenly funky opening track. By that point the crowd knew they had to submit to every vibration and convulsion emanating from the speakers. There just was no choice.

  The set-list was half songs from Mess, and the other half from their previous three albums. "No. 1 Against the Rush," off WIXIW, was a highlight with its cool down-beat and Andrew mumbling his aching soliloquy over synth-waves. 

  The finality of the set ended with a ravishing, hot wax-in-yr-earholes, trio of "Mess On A Mission," "Brats," and "Plaster Casts Of Everything," off Mess, WIXIW, and Liars, respectively. It was dangerous. There was no guarantee I wouldn't end up pierced and wailing in a graveyard by night's end. They bashed through "Plaster Casts Of Everything" with Fuego adding extra vigor to each snare pound. 

  Liars are one of the most exciting bands today to inflate, derail and splice rock & roll into new provocative, unnamed, fear-enducing and challenging subcategories. May their creative fire continue to blaze.

REVIEW: "Mess" by Liars

Liars crack open the glowstick 

on seventh album, Mess

     One of the first things I did after pressing play on Mess, the new, seventh album from Liars, was take my pants off. Only because a voice with Satanic inflections demands it on the opening song, "Mask Maker." If you fail to comply, it's your face that'll get eaten.

     Mess is the Liars' devilishly drugged-up descent into dance music. Thirty seconds in a sharp, popping drum beat inflates the track until you’re dancing like a horned demon, boxer-clad and with brown acid stuck between each tooth.

     The first single, “Mess On A Mission,” is a joyously snotty punk whip with singer Angus Andrew gaggling the title in a panicked falsetto. It’s unhinged and almost clowny, but somehow sticks in your head. “Facts are facts and fiction’s fiction,” Andrew sings spitting each word.

     Mess is more abrasive than the last Liars album, WIXIW, which saw Andrew and mates Aaron Hemphill and Julian Gross diving blindly into electronic tinkering and atmospheric resonance. The experience of that experimentation has taken root and found a lavish coexistence with the street-trash rock-and-roll of their earliest work. This mash creates a surreal listening experience that thrives on the emotion of doom and anxiety.

     The tall Aussie plank of wood that is frontman Andrew is the force keeping the album from devolving into a slipshod jam session with buttons and knobs. The desperate, black-out energy behind his voice goes from the lower depths of an entranced guard in The Wizard Of Oz to the manic-high pitch of someone being tickled to their limit. He has many shades of strange and delirium. On “Pro Anti Anti” he emotes like a down-and-out-of-shape Jim Morrison as a tremulous organ surges through zaps of electric bass.

     Mess is also the most outright hallucinogenic Liars album. Each hit of bass is muggy and drills deep into the skull. Sounds trail in and out against smudgy organ drum loops. It could be found somewhere in the blurring shadows of The King Of Limbs and Drukqs. "Dress Walker" enters the space race with a Kraftwerk-esque downbeat and the squeamish monotone panderings of Andrew. It climbs on echoes, then side-steps into juicy, space-funk.

     The voiceless "Darkslide" is a ball of loops gyrating and splintering up and out. “Perpetual Village” is body-lifting as it slinks along with cosmic sound-waves and pitched drum beats. The final song, "Left Speaker Blown," moves slow like a flickering candle. Low pulsing feedback is pulled from side to side and stretched beyond the periphery of sound until a warm peace overcomes. Could be one of their most beautiful compositions.

     With each new record Liars rip the script of their previous creative outing, challenging themselves to discover a new floor in their apartment of sound. If Mess ever hits a snag, it's with the arduous noise explorations that sometimes threaten the flow of the full unit. Depends if you want to move to your music or zone out to it, either way, Liars allow both. This collection of dark, pepped-up dance tracks is a midnight burner for the long, weird, end-of-the-world basement party you may or may not be having.

Key Tracks: "I'm No Gold," "Pro Anti Anti," "Dress Walker," "Left Speaker Blown"

Source: http://imp