Artist Liars

Joe Dilworth

Website
Liars

Few bands pursue a sense of creeping unease as doggedly as Liars, who smartly turned their back on the faddish promises of disco-punk to follow their own warped muse, one more in line with late-’70s devotees of dissonance like This Heat and Pop Group than those groups’ dance-happy contemporaries. Liars’ latest, Sisterworld, continues its tradition of taking inspiration from a geographical location and making it sound like pure hell on earth: Its apocalyptic vision of the L.A. underworld teems with paranoia and latent violence, driven by maddeningly off-key chants, bats-in-the-belfry brooding, and the occasional guitar-and-drums grand mal seizure. Like all Liars albums, it’s also haunting, emotionally draining, and strangely beautiful—insanity you can sink your teeth into.

Updated 03/10/2010