Review: Liars – Sisterworld
Liars – Sisterworld (2010) [Mute] // Grade: A
Context is very important when it comes to the music of the Liars. Often influenced by geography, their experimental sound is full of exciting unpredictability. Each of the Liars’ previous four albums have existed in their own space, standalone works that speak to the band’s creative prowess. For Sisterworld, their fifth full-length album, the Liars head to LA, and create an unsettling but ultimately beautiful collection of songs based around the faces that lurk in the fringe of a city known for plastic glamour.
The Liars are no easy listen. Their song structures are often complex and they’re not afraid to clash their vocals with their instrumentation, should they decide it produces a more artistic result. In that respect, Sisterworld is at times a difficult listen, but this is where context wins over. Ambient sounds, alienated rhythms and brooding vocals that alternate with lunatic explosions effectively create a no rules landscape of fringe dwellers and societal dropouts.
Inspired by a murder frontman Angus Andrew witnessed, “Scarecrows On A Killer Street” is an aggressive track of noise that gradually dissipates to a pulsing sprawl. Immediately following, “I Can Still See An Outside World”, picks up the dreamlike instrumentation, hitting its peak with an unexpected cloud of dark, loud guitar. It’s these kind of moments across the album, where juxtaposed tracks pick up and play off each other’s subtle elements, that unites Sisterworld through smartness and creativity.
If you’ve ever seen (and found yourself fascinated by) Marc Singer’s documentary Dark Days that follows a group people living underground in the abandoned NYC Freedom Tunnel, Sisterworld evokes that same feeling of unrest and unpredictability, a place where lost souls forging their own world in the shadows.
