Liars “Plaster Casts of Everything”

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Let me break this down real quick in case you just want to move on with your life:

Shoegaze + interpretive dance + Nick Cave x Animal Collective + Subhumans – politics + showers x German existentialism / Sonic Youth + performance art = Liars.

The best thing that any New York band could have done around the turn of the 21st century was to do exactly what Liars did: ditch the cow bell, disco beat and dance punk that was so pervasive in that town. Though their debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top had a bit more bite than their contemporaries, listen to it now and it sounds sorely dated. So they did the smart thing–they fired the cause of their disco persuasions and moved to Berlin. A little spin through their more recent efforts Drum’s Not Dead and/or their fresh self-titled record and you’ll find yourself playing catch-up, giving Liars’ newer sound more than one listen just to completely decipher the mass of musical layers found within. They challenge their listeners while continually challenging themselves, and for that they deserve a hand. In 10 years or so when the rest of pop culture catches up to them, we’ll celebrate this brilliant career choice and teach it in a marketing class in a junior college. Liars, live, is a spectacle to behold. A singer tall enough to fill the center position on the basketball court backed by four weird looking characters all making noises through a variety of guitar pedals and voice boxes–and making it all into cohesive songs. Yelling, screaming and the most fucked up dancing this side of David Byrne really captivated an audience at the El Rey like no one else I have seen in recent memory. A very confident band that is both challenging and entertaining.

– Luis Farfan