IN REVIEW: Liars - "Mess"

If there's one thing you can take away from Liars no matter your level of adoration for them, it's that they don't like to stay in one place for too long. Over the course of their six previous albums, they've explored off-kilter angular dance rock, experimental haunted ambience, psychedelic noise rock and paranoid electronic detours. Which is why, at first blush, it's a little disappointing to hear that their seventh album continues to explore the electronics they gave the reins to on 2012's WIXIW.

However, after a spin of Mess, it seems like a necessary extension of those WIXIW experiments, like the previous album was a dark closet Liars looked into but didn't bother trying on too many of the outfits within. Mess gleefully mashes instruments and effects together under meaty beats; organs, guitars and strings all get their due, though this is primarily an electronic album.

The most exciting thing about Mess is its playfulness; whereas WIXIW seemed cold and tentative, Mess explodes with emotion and colour. It also sees them taking a few more chances, a few more doomed-to-fail moments that work in spite of their flaws. Look no further than the opening seconds of opening track Mask Maker, which finds frontman Angus Andrew's voice heavily pitched down and demanding, "eat my face off". It's an unsettling visual accompanied by a pulsing, new wave beat, a horror movie that takes place in broad daylight.

As upbeat as the majority of the album is, it's a little surprising how many juxtapositions like that take place; lead single/quasi title track Mess On A Mission's distorted blips and swelling chorus might make you dance, but they also make you just a little uncomfortable. Then, there's the case of instrumental Darkslide, with its skittering beat, buzzing stabs of low end and ghostly echoes. It sounds like something Thom Yorke might have constructed if he'd been homicidal instead of depressed while making Kid A.

Mess is a little more tightly focused than some of their past efforts, but they do mix it up somewhat; Can't Hear Well scales back the beats in favour of atmosphere to slightly less than charming effect. Boyzone features a demented ragga beat that paints the dancehall red. Nine-minute Perpetual Village starts off like a Nine Inch Nails remix circa Further Down the Spiral, only to pick the pace up and morph into an Atoms For Peace head-bobber. And the album's closing track, Left Speaker Blown, makes use of everything but drums to create a contemplative and hypnotic epilogue.

After listening to it, I'm surprised that the album Mess reminds me of more than any other past Liars release isn't even WIXIW, but rather 2004's polarizing and freaky They Were Wrong So We Drowned. There are monsters lurking beneath this album's surface, ghosts that haunt the grooves no matter how sunny they appear to be. Still, the sinister undertones are ably offset by the boots n' pants beats and overall fun attitude. Indeed, Mess is more fun than perhaps any record Liars have made before. And, as electro-infused indie rock records go, it's a far sight more rewarding than most hack '80s-retro buzz bands.

So, after years of borderline trolling their fans' expectations, the big twist for Liars this time out is that there really isn't much of a twist. Instead, we get a broader, looser and better executed WIXIW that serves as a natural evolution rather than a forced detour. And I, for one, am happy to take a break from chasing genres alongside them to rest a while and listen to not just a more adventurous band, but an improved one at that.

March 25, 2014 • Mute

Highlights Mask Maker • Pro Anti Anti • Mess on a Mission