Liars in a sonar epidemic for the future

Tonight, my dear Watson, Liars walk in the shadow of a futuristic sonic dome.

The equipment is playing up all night – bass amp, vocalist’s microphone and effects – but it all adds to the DIY-cum-surreal atmosphere at the Liars gig in London, a couple of weeks ahead of their debut album, ‘They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top’, becoming available for mass delectation. Welcome to the world of jagged-rhythms, oft-change of pace, deep-vein-thrombosis causing bass, sudden pauses that freeze-frame jerky dance moves…

It is raw, magic, rough, uncompromising, hypnotic and full of ‘damn-if-I-care’ attitude. Garage-rock at its most protruding that is enriched with so many other elements of genres as wide-reaching as prog-rock and avant-garde. On face value it might appear that Liars are jumping on The Strokes and The White Stripes bandwagon but they’ve been around as long as or have even preceded the other two.

The place feels perspired before the band takes to the stage but with the first strains of punk-dancey tunes, it transforms into feeling of sweating in a swimming-pool. Liars show is so basic, so stripped down of all the bulls**t they don’t even use in-house light-rig; guitarist Aaron Hemhill is often facing away from the audience, singer spends half-the-time crouching and his crowd-surf attempt turns into a simple bounce off fans.

Singer/effectivist Angus Andrews, a lofty fellow, with his ‘2-o’clock-baseball-cap’, is a strange sight because he rejects all frontman’s clichés: no talk, no eye-contact, rare acknowledgements of applause... The New York foursome storm through ‘Grown Men Don’t Fall In The River, Just Like That’, ‘Loose Nuts On The Veladrome’, ‘Nothing Is Ever Lost Or Can Be Lost My Science Friend’ in some 35-minutes before retiring backstage, only to return for a 2-song encore.

During the set we simply have loud, mellow, tone-crammed, minimalist, aggro, ethereal… At times spirits of the Gang Of Four, The Fall, Velvet Underground, Can, King Crimson, The Stooges are aired… The list might be long but this is not just a rock-a-clone, it is far superior as it is all experimental music that dips into its reference points to keep it more interesting for listeners. (Ignorant enjoy it impulsively, one suspects.)

Liars combine spleen and cerebral into a unity that’s like oasis after a long desert trek. And, watching Liars tonight it becomes obvious why Brit-musos fail in America: they are always a couple of years behind with musical expression. All Lostprophets, Hundred Reasons, Raging Speedhorn, do is recreate sounds of the recent American past and thus are redundant before a proper get go. The only Brit-band attempting something on the par with the nu-skool of AmeRockers is The Coral.