Whenever I compose lists like this, I have to be especially careful not to confuse my “favorites” of the year with “the best.” There are certain artists who have crossed some sort of threshold in my mind that essentially disqualifies them from the year-end best lists, simply because they would always rank there. I am forced to admit a certain degree of subjectivity; I can no longer judge clearly whether I am judging these records clearly. Otherwise, my list would have Depeche Mode, the Fall, and something Damon Albarn-related on it every year.
Liars have probably ascended to that level. For me, they remain the most consistently unpredictable and refreshing band of the 2000s. Yet after I heralded their 2nd album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned as the best of 2004 ("Foot in the grave!" The album is all about witchcraft…), I just kind of stopped talking about them. So please allow me a moment, in the midst of this year’s countdown, to reflect upon the state of Liars today, how they measured up in 2007, and what it means to be a Liars fan.
My friend John, who typically likes laid back singer/songwriter types and countrified rock bands like Wilco, went to see Interpol back in October, with Liars opening up. The morning after the show, I asked him what he thought of it. “Interpol were okay,” he said. “But that opening band? They weren’t even music.”
Of course, Liars are music, but I know what he meant. Liars are so driven by their own contrarianism that they’ll spend two years making noise just to make up for the previous two years in which they composed songs. Most of the time, they focus so heavily on hovering near the outer fringes of convention that the brief hooks and choruses that inevitably pop up on their records come across as extreme moments of experimentalism. Somehow after six or seven years of making severe left turns in their career, the decision to tour with Interpol—a much more refined and palatable band—just seemed like another bizarre and shocking move for the trio. After all, these are the guys whose biggest hit to date is called “The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack,” and who grafted their own heads onto an explicit gay porn photo for the cover of one of their singles, even though I am fairly certain they’re all straight. These are the guys who named their debut album They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top and yet named their fourth album Liars.
The self-title is appropriate, though. This record qualifies as one of my favorites of the year, not because of its experimentalism, but because it incorporates all the elements of their previous albums into one: '70s punk rock, sinister synth drones, percussive experiments, and remarkable pop songs. Even though 2006's Drum’s Not Dead restored the band’s esteem within the indie community, it remains their weakest record overall. Liars, however, is a clear return to form, a form that the band will likely blow wide open the next time they emerge from the darkness of the woods.
Warning: weirdness follows, but we Liars fans wouldn't have it any other way. We spit upon the Wilcos of the world.
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