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Liars
Sisterworld
By Chris Drabick
No one would ever hang the adjective “warm” on Liars. They do so much to keep the uninitiated at arms’ length, after all; citing difficult influences like This Heat or Matmos, making a concept record based on German witch folklore, or closing their debut with a full half-hour of the same beat over and over and over. But 2007’s self-titled record seemed like a new era for the band, as self-titled entries a few records into a band’s career usually portend. Gone were the machinations of old, replaced by a far more organic approach that might’ve pissed off long-time fans, but revealed an actual heart beating within the collective chest of one of the aughts’ most indiscernible bands.
Sisterworld continues along this path, but that’s not to say it’s warm. There is still a confrontational spirit to the rumblings underneath the creepy “Drip,” and the harmonics that comprise the awesome riff of “Proud Evolution” are not conventional riffage. There are echoes of their dance-punk past on “Scarecrows On a Killer Slant,” and something approaching metal sludge on the brutal “Goodnight Everything,” the latter of which improbably winds around to a catchy little horn chart near its end. A palpable sense of despair pulses through the record, and it results in Sisterworld ending up as Liars’ most human-sounding album. Just don’t call it warm.
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