album // They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top
Paul Smith, head of Mute's Blast First subsidiary, signed Liars after witnessing a live show in NYC during 2001. Apparently, Smith was as excited by Liars as he was during Blast First's most celebrated era, back when acts like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr were first licenced by Smith for the UK music buying public's greater good. It's not hard to see why with this, their debut album, bearing one of the lengthiest, archest titles I've seen. The band were recorded here across a two day period in June / July 2001, with producer Steve Revitte (JSBX, Beastie Boys) at the helm. Despite the short studio time, this isn't as messy as it might imply.
The line-up is their celebrated early live fourpiece formation - Angus Andrew (vocals and pedals), Aaron Hemphill (guitar and drum machine), Pat Nature (bass and synthbox) and drummer Ron Albertson. The sound is the much-hyped 'punk funk', except that here you can totally hear what the fuss is all about with these champions of the new wave of New (No) Wave. Alternately sinewy and muscular guitars, confident vocals, funk basslines, synths and steady drumming combine to form a competent alt.rock formula which totally, well, rocks. The production helps, but on the whole the reason for this album's superior sound is the band themselves, who traverse rock's resplendent forms with a honed sense of cross-genre mastery.
There are a number of highlights among the LP's nine tracks, such as the rapid fire metal funk of the opener, 'Grown Men Don't Fall In The River, Just Like That', or the stop-start drum machine and synth jam that is 'Mr Your On Fire Mr'. 'The Garden Was Crowded And Outside' deploys a steady drum break and some very RHCP-esque bass and guitar work, and the lyrics throughout this album are every bit as quirky and off-the-wall as the Chili's Anthony Keidis.
It is exciting and gratifying to hear a band embrace synths and rhythm machines so readily. 'Nothing Is Ever Lost Or Can Be Lost My Science Friend' is case in point, and sees drummer Albertson duelling with rolling kick drum patterns and dirty waveforms. The album's finest upbeat moment is the frenetic 'We Live NE Of Compton' which is a too-brief caustic punk number.
Track 'This Dust Makes That Mud' is a track that I'm sure would have attracted quite a few column inches in the alternative music press, for the simple reason that it lasts for just over 30 minutes. Given that the whole album lasts for 50 minutes, this is a pretty sizable chunk of the total running time. Now, Sonic Youth's epic 'Diamond Sea' (from Washing Machine) was pretty epic, lasting close to twenty minutes. 'Diamond Sea' began as a pretty, well, conventional, almost pleasant rock tune before developing into an elongated drone- and feedback-fest which sounded almost like waves - never quite the same, each wave was a progression, a variation. 'This Dust...' is nothing like this. 'This Dust...' starts as an impressive, melancholy melange of quirky noises and riffs, which all but solidify at just over 8 minutes. This alone would make this the longest track by several clear minutes, but it's not even close to the conclusion. What follows is the most maddeningly simple, beautiful and repetitive section of music produced by a band. A chiming guitar melody, a downtempo beat, a pretty spare bassline, and a subtle headcleaning white noise sample - that's all it is for the next 20 minutes, playing the same short section over and over and over. After a while it becomes entrancing. But does it change at all? It's impossible to tell. At times you feel that a particular instrument has become louder - but has it? Or have you just latched onto it? At other times you feel like it's all slowing down - and indeed that's how it ends - but is it? Any changes / progressions are so subtle as to be almost imperceptible, and its anyone's guess whether what you hear at the end is the same or different. It makes strangely compelling listening.