Liars - Drum's Not Dead

Thu 2nd Mar, 2006 in Music Reviews

There aren’t too many bands around that polariwe the critics like Berlin-based, New York-bred trio Liars polarise the critics. A quick glance at music reviewer’s bible MetaCritic reveals that verdicts for the band’s two previous albums – 2001’s They Threw Us In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top and 2004’s They Were Wrong, So We Drowned – range from the direct “painful” (Rolling Stone, Spin) through to hyperbolic praise that should be taken with a grain of salt considering it’s sources (NME, Pitchfork Media).

Bearing that in mind, the polar opposition for the group’s third full length album Drum’s Not Dead will be even moreso. For not only does the album – moving away from the band’s previous ‘punk funk’ and heading down a deeply experimental path – largely revolve around two fictional characters Drum and Mount Heart Attack, who combined are name checked in eleven song titles out of twelve, but Drum’s Not Dead also marks what could possibly become a new trend – a full audio-visual project. A bonus DVD contains 36 videos – or to clarify, front man Angus Andrew, drummer Julian Gross and renowned filmmaker Markus Wambsganss each had a stab at creating 12 videos – one for each album track. But more on that later.

For those who came in late: the innovative Liars, led by Australian Andrew, were a couple of years back in danger of being typecast as “Karen O’s boyfriend’s band” (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs front woman and Andrew’s now defunct relationship led to Liars supporting his girlfriend’s group around the globe, and Fever To Tell’s Maps reportedly written about O’s troubles leaving her man behind when she goes on tour.) But Liars’ previous albums – all the scathing criticism notwithstanding – were lauded by many punters and critics alike as a band to watch, the next big thing, a team of visionaries. The band always specialised in murky, unrefined noise rock; a world away from the NME scene in which bands are polished enough to see your own reflection in.

Drum’s Not Dead was in part born from the band’s relocation to Europe. Liars’ record label Mute excitedly talks up “previous NYC ‘scene’ labels,” and indeed, with Drum’s Not Dead, nothing could be further from the truth. For the album is a complex, challenging listen that can prove frustrating at times – although after time investment, it all pays off. To be filed in the cupboard marked “Kid A-esque experimentalism,” the album adopts several stylistic cues and runs with them – thumping tribal drums, eerie keyboard lines and vocals from Andrew that frequently veer between hysterical falsetto and sombre mumbling.

There’s barely a conventional song in sight, either – at least not in the Kurt Cobain ‘verse, chorus, verse’ style. Album closer The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack – all simple piano lines and soaring backing vocals – seemingly the missing link between The Polyphonic Spree’s Have A Day and Radiohead’s Exit Music (for a Film) – is as close as we get.

The back to back opening double of Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack! and Let’s Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack set the scene for what is to follow: the ethereal Be Quiet combines monotonous primal tom tom drums with a willfully tuneless keyboard echo for a good two and a half minutes before live drums kick in. The latter is even more confronting; a repetitive industrial siren repeating over and over on top of filtered falsetto that would please Thom Yorke and stark, single keyboard notes. A couple of minutes in, it all drowns out to be replaced by a beautiful piano melody, before it all stops and the industrial noises return accompanied by a blood-curdling scream. It’s confusing and not entirely logical, but it’s also captivating.

For the most part, guitars are shoved aside in favour of more earthly sounds; pulsating samples, reverb-coated drums, incomprehensible vocal lines. But sometimes the amps are turned back on – such as during Drum and the Uncomfortable Can, where squealing feedback and manic percussive tones occupy the first two minutes until Andrew’s dictative vocals “steal a silver car / drive it to town” mesh with cymbal crashing to create one of the album’s highlights.

First single It Fit When I Was A Kid – which came complete with a hardcore gay porn cover, the band’s faces pasted over the original subjects – wields a chorus of four bass notes and repeatedly threatens to break into something else, until it does: two minutes in, an organ plays what sounds like a funeral march before the primitive drums return. The Wrong Coat For You, Mt. Heart Attack begins with samples of the Elbe river, and takes a laidback, haunting approach, slowly reaching a crescendo with every verse until the double vocal line ebbs away and all that’s left is the sound of the river flowing.

Of course, with such am ambitious project for the band, it’s inevitable that something wouldn’t stick. It’s All Blooming Now, Mt Heart Attack is an ambient three minute instrumental that quite literally goes nowhere and its track listing is somewhat unnecessary. You, Drum (which appears back to back with To Hold You, Drum – just to save confusion) sees the appearance of acoustic guitar underneath stilted vocals. It’s a terrific blueprint for a song, but at 70 seconds, the listener feels somewhat shortchanged.

Of course, as a whole, there’s nothing to feel shortchanged about with Drum’s Not Dead. Instead, the entire package – from the almost incomprehensible graffiti laden album sleeve through to the cartoons and childish handwriting within downwards – gives the impression of a project that has taken a long time to perfect. The aforementioned DVD, a truly unique concept, offers the three mens’ work as individual packages – the three selections are presented in both PCM and Dolby formats, and within each package, the skip function can be used to jump to a particular track.

Gross’ Drum’s Not Bread is easily the most user-friendly, his tracks spanning bright and colourful claymation, studio footage, Monty Python inspired cartoons and shaky hand-held live footage. Andrew’s The Helix Aspersa follows the adventure of a snail; while beautifully filmed, it begins to grate after a few tracks. Wambsganss’ By Your Side, however, contains a cavalcade of ideas; from Let’s Not Wrestle Mt Heart Attack’s grainy, arty industrial footage through to the brilliantly understated video for The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack containing three continuous camera shots; one on each band member, as they stare stony-faced into the camera.

With Drum’s Not Dead, Liars could have taken the easy option. They could have recorded a noisy guitar album. But they decided to do the opposite, and take an entire risk. Drum’s Not Dead is a fully realised, brilliantly executed album that seeps further into the conscious with each and every listen. Keep an eye out for this one; you get the feeling it’ll be appearing at the pointy end of many ‘best of’ lists come the end of the year.