The Liars - Drum's Not Dead (2006)

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totally excited for this. on the first track. definitely plan on picking it up when it hits the stores for the videos.

Liars forthcoming album DRUM'S NOT DEAD was partly inspired by the band's relocation from NYC to Berlin. It finds Liars taking another seismic step forward, switching continents and seizing new musical territory. It's also their finest and fullest album to date, shredding all past reference points. No more Post Rock, Punk-Funk and No Wave clichés. The Atlantic Ocean certainly puts clear blue water between Liars and narrow, outdated NYC scene labels. DRUM'S NOT DEAD marks a major shift for Liars to rank alongside Brian Wilson's wilder sonic journeys, or Radiohead's embrace of experimental abstraction. Tracks like "Drum And The Uncomfortable Can" build to a symphonic crescendo of brooding, brutal intensity. And yet the album ends with "The Other Side of Mt.Heart Attack", the most perversely conventional and unashamedly beautiful Liars track ever written. The calm after the storm, quietly moving and totally unexpected. DRUM'S NOT DEAD comes loaded with its own cinematic sister project: 36 short films, three for each track,all included on the standard album CD.From backstage travelogues to surreal animation and mini sci-fi epics, Liars document the process of recording, touring, then visually reinventing each track. It's an ambitious and groundbreaking expansion of the CD format, throwing down the gauntlet for other creatively ambitious bands to follow suit - the sound of a band redrawing their own creative horizons.

― jaxon (jaxon), Saturday, 17 December 2005 06:01 (twenty years ago)

malarkey or effective-way?

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Saturday, 17 December 2005 06:09 (twenty years ago)

Tracks like "Drum And The Uncomfortable Can" build to a symphonic crescendo of brooding, brutal intensity. And yet the album ends with "The Other Side of Mt.Heart Attack", the most perversely conventional and unashamedly beautiful Liars track ever written

This sounds like... Xiu Xiu?

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Saturday, 17 December 2005 06:10 (twenty years ago)

funnier cover

― frickin' username (fandango), Saturday, 17 December 2005 06:12 (twenty years ago)

shit, this kinda sucks so far. and i loved the last one.

― pinder (pinder), Saturday, 17 December 2005 08:29 (twenty years ago)

actually, the last one sucked, this is brilliant

― cutty (mcutt), Saturday, 17 December 2005 09:06 (twenty years ago)

It's pretty good!

― Simon H. (Simon H.), Saturday, 17 December 2005 11:06 (twenty years ago)

the last one was brilliant. haven't heard this one yet, but i can't wait. but is that the press release? it blows.

― the people are such untight s wads (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 17 December 2005 12:38 (twenty years ago)

spacemen 3

― cutty (mcutt), Saturday, 17 December 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

ok i've changed my mind, the last half picks up nicely. "Drum and the Uncomfortable Can" is a great doom and gloom track.

― pinder (pinder), Saturday, 17 December 2005 17:26 (twenty years ago)

its pretty good.

― Stephen C (ihope), Saturday, 17 December 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

i'm not sure if i want to download this.
the last album was my favorite album of 2004, and the new single is fuckin' awesome. plus i want the video's. when's the release date?

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Saturday, 17 December 2005 19:59 (twenty years ago)

OMG want to hear this.

― [jailhouse tattoo] (nordicskilla), Saturday, 17 December 2005 20:11 (twenty years ago)

i think it's supposed to come out in february

― jaxon (jaxon), Saturday, 17 December 2005 20:14 (twenty years ago)

but is that the press release? it blows.

yeah, totally. radiohead? brian wilson? wtf?

― jaxon (jaxon), Saturday, 17 December 2005 20:16 (twenty years ago)

Is this album more "ordinary" than the last? I like the direction they took with that after a pretty boring debut.

― Lee is Free (Lee is Free), Saturday, 17 December 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

nah, it's even more dronier than the last one. last one at least had remnants of "threw us in a trench" with tracks like "room on the broom" or "they don't want your corn". this album is more like the broken witch or flow my spider tracks

― pinder (pinder), Saturday, 17 December 2005 20:51 (twenty years ago)

this one is more melodic than anything they've ever done

― cutty (mcutt), Saturday, 17 December 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

Great. I love melodies.

― [jailhouse tattoo] (nordicskilla), Saturday, 17 December 2005 21:44 (twenty years ago)

maybe ill actually like the liars

― howell huser (chaki), Saturday, 17 December 2005 22:22 (twenty years ago)

I love a lot of the Liars work, but to claim that they will "rank alongside Brian Wilson's wilder sonic journeys" is just absurd. Look forward to listening to it regardless.

― Dan Floss (Dan Floss), Sunday, 18 December 2005 04:39 (twenty years ago)

tell me more abt the spacemen 3 connection, cutty.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Sunday, 18 December 2005 04:42 (twenty years ago)

The name of this band is Liars. No 'the'. Not a tough concept.

― Reggie, Sunday, 18 December 2005 05:12 (twenty years ago)

are you reggie q of hanson/ameritapes list fame?

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Sunday, 18 December 2005 05:19 (twenty years ago)

There are two kinds of people in the world: People who hate Wolf Eyes and liars

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 18 December 2005 08:24 (twenty years ago)

There are two kinds of people in the world: People who think there are two kinds of people and everyone else.

― nancyboy (nancyboy), Sunday, 18 December 2005 12:25 (twenty years ago)

Ouch, I think Liars are great. But for some time I've been ranting that the Beach Boys and Radiohead are among the most overrated bands ever.

Hope there aren't any harmonies

― bendy (bendy), Sunday, 18 December 2005 13:58 (twenty years ago)

Stupid person in "saying stupid things about the Beach Boys and Radiohead" shockah.

― The Wanderers' Wandering Daughter (noodle vague), Sunday, 18 December 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

Stupid people, sorry.

Anyway, Liars seem to have been saddled with a press office that keeps banging on about how they're not part of a scene ever since they started. It doesn't stop their music being consistently wonderful. I'm hyped for this one.

― The Wanderers' Wandering Daughter (noodle vague), Sunday, 18 December 2005 14:04 (twenty years ago)

this is very Animal Collectivy

― Rizz (Rizz), Sunday, 18 December 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

really, it's not

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 18 December 2005 15:03 (twenty years ago)

oh it is

― Rizz (Rizz), Sunday, 18 December 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

i hear it a little more after your comment. but there isn't hardly any guitar on this album, and so much of animal collective's sound is that heavily effects laden guitar shit.

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 18 December 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

yeah that's true but its more the tribal percussion vibe that reminds me of them

― Rizz (Rizz), Sunday, 18 December 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

implying your previous work was "cliched" doesn't do a lot for your credibility, really.

― u saved me (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 18 December 2005 17:24 (twenty years ago)

well, when you "shred" all past "reference points" nothing else matters, really.

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 18 December 2005 17:37 (twenty years ago)

i'm so sick of animal collective and i haven't even listened to them that extensively.

― the people are such untight s wads (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 18 December 2005 17:39 (twenty years ago)

Does that mean you also don't believe in Peter Pan?!?! Merry Holidays indeed!

― nancyboy (nancyboy), Monday, 19 December 2005 11:34 (twenty years ago)

inspired by the band's relocation from NYC to Berlin.

maybe this is the first installment in a TRILOGY OF CLASSIC COCAINE PARANOIA ALBUMS!!

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Monday, 19 December 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

Peter Pan loves The Coke--Fairy Dust?!?!

― nancyboy (nancyboy), Monday, 19 December 2005 11:47 (twenty years ago)

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~csakuda/tinkerbell.jpg

― nancyboy (nancyboy), Monday, 19 December 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

i wish that was the cover.

― bob abernethy (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 19 December 2005 12:35 (twenty years ago)

http://prodtn.cafepress.com/nocache/2/20260022_F_tn.jpg

― [jailhouse tattoo] (nordicskilla), Monday, 19 December 2005 16:16 (twenty years ago)

on first listen, this is pretty cool. it strikes me as being a little like the raincoats' odyshape, if the last record was like a slates/flowers of romance combo. i mean, whatever. i guess i dont NEED to find it an antecedent. i sort of wish it were a little more *bracing*, like the last one. but im totally into mumbly.

― petesmith (plsmith), Monday, 19 December 2005 23:09 (twenty years ago)

i'm so excited for this! i dearly hope it's good. they were wrong...is one of my favs of recent years.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 19 December 2005 23:23 (twenty years ago)

"perversely conventional"!

― [jailhouse tattoo] (nordicskilla), Monday, 19 December 2005 23:24 (twenty years ago)

If you did not like No Flashlight, it might sound better after you listen to this.
worst 2006 leak so far.

― mox twelve (Mox twleve), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 00:59 (twenty years ago)

though No Flashlight sounds bad no matter what.

― mox twelve (Mox twleve), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 01:01 (twenty years ago)

"The Other Side of Mt.Heart Attack" really does sound like Radiohead.

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 01:01 (twenty years ago)

no, spacemen 3

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 01:04 (twenty years ago)

If spacemen 3 are supposed to sound like radiohead + coldplay

― mox twelve (Mox twleve), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 01:08 (twenty years ago)

supposedly a split with oneida coming in 2k6, too. itll be weird to hear how different they both sound than they did on atheists, reconsider, which by the way TOTALLY RULES and is one of the best releases by either band (though probably not the absolute best release by either band).

― petesmith (plsmith), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 04:59 (twenty years ago)

i gave in a downloaded this.

i must say that it's really, really, really fucking awesome.

that is all.

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 05:33 (twenty years ago)

I'm hugely impressed by this on first play. It's what I've spent about three years wanting Animal Collective to sound like

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 10:17 (twenty years ago)

I like it. A very interesting band.

― [jailhouse tattoo] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 22 December 2005 06:21 (twenty years ago)

please, animal collecitve. keep doing what your're doing. this new liars albums is shit.

― juno crunch, Thursday, 22 December 2005 08:12 (twenty years ago)

yeah leave animal collective out of this.

multiple bands already own what concept the Liars attempt with this flippant "effort."
i.e., this shit has been done before, only, shit was done well.

― mox twelve (Mox twleve), Thursday, 22 December 2005 09:14 (twenty years ago)

Band names better than "the Liars": "Art Brut," "Arctic Monkeys," "Ice Testicles," etc.

Album names better than 'Drum's Not Dead': 'Bang Bang Rock and Roll', 'For Screening Purposes Only', etc.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 22 December 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

what are band names better than "Liars" then

― lemin (lemin), Thursday, 22 December 2005 20:43 (twenty years ago)

The three I mentioned above.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 22 December 2005 20:45 (twenty years ago)

"ice testicles"....

that just makes me feel a little icky.

― wolves (wolves), Thursday, 22 December 2005 21:08 (twenty years ago)

It's actually "Test Icicles," which, I think you'd agree, is actually much better. My bad.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 22 December 2005 21:30 (twenty years ago)

tim, wtf are you talking about

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 22 December 2005 21:47 (twenty years ago)

he's obviously on dmt

― howell huser (chaki), Thursday, 22 December 2005 21:50 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000CNFB0O.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

i guess that's the cover?

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 01:31 (nineteen years ago)

so are Liars becoming The Cripples then?

― Dom iNut (donut), Wednesday, 11 January 2006 02:14 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, this reminds me of feels, but more interesting on the surface. Also, vocals remind me of arab strap and a little bill ding

― Barbara Capsloch, Monday, 23 January 2006 07:53 (nineteen years ago)

i gotta ge tto the postoffice and see if i have the album..but the single is pretty damned alright.

quitit with the animal collective...

― bb (bbrz), Monday, 23 January 2006 16:00 (nineteen years ago)

beautiful record.

― stockholm cindy (winter version) (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 23 January 2006 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

Seconded.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 23 January 2006 19:17 (nineteen years ago)

"The Other Side of Mt. Heartattack" is beautiful, and "It Fit When I Was a Kid" is great too - that's all I've heard, but I am loving them.

The "It Fit/Kid" melody in the verse is totally similar to some 1980s R&B/pop song, and it's killing me - anyone? The real sing-songy up-and-down verse?

― Mugged Outside the Jabberjaw, 1993 (Bent Over at the Arclight), Monday, 23 January 2006 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

i think it's the turtles song "you showed me," later covered by the lightning seeds

― marc h. (marc h.), Monday, 23 January 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

Yep. Bet these guys have some advice for the Liars about that.

http://muzyka.onet.pl/_i/info/duze/d/de_la_soul2.jpg

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 23 January 2006 22:47 (nineteen years ago)

'let's not wrestle mt. heart attack' opens with some shit (falling multi-vocals) bitten straight from boredoms' super ae album. or they arrived at the same point unconsciously.

― palpttean mists, Monday, 23 January 2006 23:17 (nineteen years ago)

i find it hard to really get into this one. it feels so empty.

― willem -- (willem), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 07:29 (nineteen years ago)

aw no willem, it's not empty. it's just floaty

― rizzx, Tuesday, 24 January 2006 08:47 (nineteen years ago)

that's what i thought at first, joris. but now if feel it's not really floaty at all, it's as though they forgot to raise the anker. it's too self-aware to float, imo.

― willem -- (willem), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 08:59 (nineteen years ago)

i know what you mean about the self aware thing, they are indeed very self aware but it doesn't bother me at all. they're just trying to push their limits. i think they're able to craft a masterpiece but they aren't there just yet

― rizzx (rizzx), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 09:19 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

this album is beautiful.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 19:17 (nineteen years ago)

this album is awesome

― prince rupert, Tuesday, 7 February 2006 19:30 (nineteen years ago)

i like this album at least as much as anything i heard last year.

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 03:32 (nineteen years ago)

wtf does that mean?

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 04:21 (nineteen years ago)

'be quiet mt. heart attack' reminds me a LOT of my bloody valentine, circa 'isn't anything' era. specifically -- 'no more sorry'. both songs also have vocals that could almost be considered pretty if they weren't so creepy.

― 6335, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 05:53 (nineteen years ago)

i know it was said upthread, but this album is Flowers of Romance pt II

― team jaxon (jaxon), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 06:02 (nineteen years ago)

Man, this is one of those promos that I wish we'd gotten at the mag. It's one of the few new albums I'm excited about, though I'm at least a bit wary. The Drum and Can song didn't excite me all that much, but I really liked their last album a lot (especially after I felt pretty damn burned by buying their first album, which I thought was really boring).

― js (honestengine), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 22:48 (nineteen years ago)

i like this album at least as much as anything i heard last year.

-- Matt McEver (mattmc38...), February 8th, 2006.

wtf does that mean?

-- cutty (holle...), February 8th, 2006.

of that albums that were released last year, that is.

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Thursday, 16 February 2006 02:52 (nineteen years ago)

still doesn't make a bit of sense

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 16 February 2006 03:15 (nineteen years ago)

no, i'm afraid you're wrong. it means, in other words, this album ranks with what are in my opinion the best albums of last year. except i didn't want to say it that way because i think that sounds too confident/permanent. i wanted to leave room for albums i hadn't heard, as well as for my changing opinions, etc.

i'm not sure why that had to be spelled out.

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Thursday, 16 February 2006 03:56 (nineteen years ago)

you said anything you "heard last year," not anything you heard last year that you considered to be one of the best albums of last year.

i heard tons of shit music last year and for me to say that i like the new liars at least as much as anything i "heard last year" doesn't mean a fucking thing to anybody.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:02 (nineteen years ago)

only a moron wouldn't assume i am referring to the best of what i heard last year. or a prick who wants to nag people posting on a music message board for being slightly vague.

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:09 (nineteen years ago)

"slightly" vague. slightly fucking retarded.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:12 (nineteen years ago)

Jesus, Cutty, take it easy.

― T/S: Pinks/Oki Dog/Scoobys/Tail o' the Pup (Bent Over at the Arclight), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:16 (nineteen years ago)

does anyone want to save this thread?

i feel bad for helping this guy ruin it.

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:18 (nineteen years ago)

"at least" and "as much as anything I heard" makes some sense.
i.e. this album >= the sum of "anything I heard"

you're both morans though

Seriously, what's with Liars moving out of the country and doing weirdo festivals and shit? I'm never going to see these fuckers in the midwest, am I?

― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:19 (nineteen years ago)

i just wanted some clarification and "this guy" calls me a moron.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:20 (nineteen years ago)

oh, and a prick.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:21 (nineteen years ago)

Jesus, Cutty, take it easy.?

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:22 (nineteen years ago)

you were obviously the aggressor up until that point in the argument, and you're obviously both a prick and a moron. i don't know why i'm still acknowledging you...

so what's everyone's favorite track on this album?

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:26 (nineteen years ago)

you were obviously the aggressor up until that point in the argument and you were being really obnoxious. i don't know why i'm still acknowledging you...

so what's everyone's favorite track on this album?

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:27 (nineteen years ago)

nice one!

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:28 (nineteen years ago)

cutty ftw

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:37 (nineteen years ago)

you fought well brother. let us listen to "drum's not dead," together.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:42 (nineteen years ago)

phew

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:45 (nineteen years ago)

"Jesus, Cutty, take it easy.?
-- cutty (holle...), February 16th, 2006."

Yeah take it easy! I'm not defending Prick-n-a-Moron Jones or anything, but god almighty, seemed like you came pretty strong with the "WTF does that mean?" shit. I think everyone knows what he meant.

― T/S: Pinks/Oki Dog/Scoobys/Tail o' the Pup (Bent Over at the Arclight), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:45 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

Shit, the feud ended and I had to take another sip.

― T/S: Pinks/Oki Dog/Scoobys/Tail o' the Pup (Bent Over at the Arclight), Thursday, 16 February 2006 04:45 (nineteen years ago)

wtf does that mean?

― inert false cat (sleep), Thursday, 16 February 2006 06:19 (nineteen years ago)

for all the animal collective comparisons there's at least one pretty solid example: liars' "drum gets a glimpse" vs. ac's "the softest voice"

― inert false cat (sleep), Thursday, 16 February 2006 06:20 (nineteen years ago)

i got a promo of this yesterday. i am very excited. if i had even so much as a spare nanosecond, i'd have started listening to it already. hopefully today.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 16 February 2006 09:28 (nineteen years ago)

some promo. it appears to have been released already.

however, it also appears to be fucking awesome. it's section 25 for the 21st century ;)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 16 February 2006 15:35 (nineteen years ago)

Fiscal year or calendar year? STATE YOUR TERMS.

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 16 February 2006 15:48 (nineteen years ago)

WTF DOES THAT MEAN?

― team jaxon (jaxon), Thursday, 16 February 2006 17:48 (nineteen years ago)

Does "last year" last from now to last 365 days ago, or do you count the last calendar year from January to December? THESE ARE IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONS FOR RECOLLECTING THE SUBJECTIVE, RELATIVE WORTH OF MUSIC VIS A VIS OTHER RECORDINGS RELEASED AND CONSUMED AROUND THE SAME TIME!!!

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 16 February 2006 17:54 (nineteen years ago)

exactly

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 16 February 2006 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

GET HIP, PEOPLE

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 16 February 2006 19:18 (nineteen years ago)

First impression is that this is an amazing album.

The DVD with it, which I initially assumed to contain videos for three different songs, actually contains three different videos for the entire album!

Is Dadaismus here? I really think he'd love this!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 22:26 (nineteen years ago)

wtf does that mean?

― team jaxon (jaxon), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

your calendar is out of date, homes.

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 22:46 (nineteen years ago)

did this come out today in the US?

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 23:13 (nineteen years ago)

I put this on today in HMV, got complaints from two customers by the time it got to the second track (the usual, "this isn't music, it sounds like a factory") before the manager came down and turned it off. I'll try again tomorrow.

― dmun drive-in (dmun), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 23:28 (nineteen years ago)

on reflection, after four listens, i can confidently say that this album (which i think might come out next monday: apologies) is absolutely fucking mindblowing and i refer you all to what i said about mrs fiendish's hat on the M83 thread last year.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 00:28 (nineteen years ago)

stylus gave it a 5 out of 5

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 04:19 (nineteen years ago)

i mean tinymixtapes.com gave it a 5 out of 5

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 04:23 (nineteen years ago)

This is not of the good.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 04:51 (nineteen years ago)

I like this record, but not as much as Drowned .... maybe it's just the repetition of the titles but I feel like it's three or four good songs done three or four times each, instead of twelve songs. If that makes any sense. There's nothing as crazy out-there as "Broken Witch" or "Room on the Broom" ....

I do kinda appreciate that they made room for prettiness on this one. The last track is real sweet.

― Renard (Renard), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:02 (nineteen years ago)

I think my favorite track is "Drum and the Uncomfortable Can." All that buzzing and humming and reverberating coils.

Haven't watched the movies yet.

― Renard (Renard), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:04 (nineteen years ago)

Cutty, I needed the same clarification, btw.

― regular roundups (Dave M), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:31 (nineteen years ago)

This is really horrible.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:42 (nineteen years ago)

wtf does that mean?

― team jaxon (jaxon), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:44 (nineteen years ago)

haha, it's not horrible! but it's not terribly interesting (I think I agree w/the notion of "three or four good songs done three or four times each")

― Dominique (dleone), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:45 (nineteen years ago)

Which good songs?

― Turangalila (Salvador), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

for all the animal collective comparisons there's at least one pretty solid example: liars' "drum gets a glimpse" vs. ac's "the softest voice"

-- inert false cat (enemy.airshi...), February 16th, 2006 12:20 AM.

yes

― Eggzakly Huhh? (zachary v.), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

There's just like this guy droning on about stuff, and some scary echoey noises, and some really repetitive drumming. This is horrible! Maybe they even worship Satan!

― My Inner Melissa (mike h.), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:05 (nineteen years ago)

thas rock n roll, ladies n germs

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I'm totally a musical prude. Um, oh wait, no.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:03 (nineteen years ago)

I'm an asshole.

― My Inner My Inner Melissa, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:15 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, because Melissa certainly doesn't like weird shit.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:23 (nineteen years ago)

does the dvd have a region code on it?
if it doesn't i might import it.

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/l/liars/drums-not-dead.shtml

― rizzx (Rizz), Thursday, 23 February 2006 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

Three songs in: pretty kickass.

― gbx (skowly), Thursday, 23 February 2006 15:15 (nineteen years ago)

lia's rubies!

― pssst - badass revolutionary art! (plsmith), Thursday, 23 February 2006 15:18 (nineteen years ago)

dru's not dead!

― pssst - badass revolutionary art! (plsmith), Thursday, 23 February 2006 15:18 (nineteen years ago)

Melissa, I wasn't really mocking your interest in music, but I'd really like to hear why you don't like this album. Mostly since I do like it for many of the reasons already mentioned.

― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 23 February 2006 16:56 (nineteen years ago)

First of all, it's disingenuous to claim you weren't mocking me when you posted as 'My Inner Melissa'. Seriously, I don't care that much, but own what you say.

Second of all, if I had posted as Mark W, I highly doubt you would have chosen to frame that mocking as some kind of girly musical/cultural squeamishness based on ignorance and fear of the strange.

With both of those things said, I dislike the album because I think it's boring and unadventurous. It sounds joyless and monotonous and uninspired, as if they bored even themselves to death while making it. The drumming and beats aren't actually all that unusual or interesting, the songs themselves lack dynamics of any kind, continuing in the same groove like a dull saw hacking at my brain. The vocals are lethargic and entirely grating, as are the harmonics and melodies. I'm just not sure what, if anything, I'm supposed to be taking away from this album. It's like a frictionless surface. I can't hold on to anything about it when it's done, nor do I particularly want to. It's all, "Yay! Drums and feedback and chanting exist!" Oh yeah? Then do something with them. Like yeah, all of that can make for a fantastic album, but only if you're really willing to really take those things to interesting places and not play it safe like kindergarteners with safety scissors.

But hey, I'll just be sitting over here with my copy of Tago Mago instead, fearing the strange like the little girl that I am.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:04 (nineteen years ago)

http://images.art.com/images/-/You-Got-Served-double-sided--C10117859.jpeg

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:11 (nineteen years ago)

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:17 (nineteen years ago)

i really like this album, but melissa's last post ruled.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:26 (nineteen years ago)

I think it works well as a monotonous record, but I don't see at all how it sounds uninspired. That is the only part of your critique that doesn't add up to me.. hmm... The rest of it is probably true, but when you add inspiration to the mix music can be both grating and engaging; or a 'frictionless surface' can be pretty entertaining to slide across... None of their albums before this were about giving you something to hold onto, and I loved the second one to pieces for just that. Yes, this album makes the statement "Yay! drums and feedback exist" and that is a big part of its appeal. I think they switch it up a little.. they play on the notion of "inspiration" (in fact, that's what the whole album's about if you listen!) and kind of twist it around into an ambivalent mess, but it's such a thoughtful mess that it seems more like a conversation. You know I'm rambling. I like the album very much. it inspires me. xpost

― snnhy, Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

Thanks Melissa! I only made a cursory glance over the thread so I didn't notice it was *that* Melissa. Not that it would have really mattered, since I don't really know you! But with background filled in, I can understand why it doesn't seem that hot. I pretty much threw out a straw man to mock since it seemed like you were flat-out not liking it as something that exists, not as a sub-standard album of this sort. Or so I apparently surmised from the two or three words you actually said.

The female/male issue never crossed my mind. We usually don't post on the same threads (or at least not that I notice) so my recognition was a little slow based on the short posts you made. Lacking context, "This is really horrible" kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Knowing it's from someone who might actually be into this sort of thing adds some context and your post was great (frictionless? yeah!)

That said, Tago Mago is one of my favorite albums too.

― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

It was also a poor ploy to get you to post more since I didn't bother to sign out and pre-emptively apologized *before* your long post.

― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

I haven't heard the new one, but I had the impression they should've hung it up when their original rhythm section left.

Melissa's post reinforces that notion, sounds similar to my response to their last album. Who knows though, maybe I'll like this one.

― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:41 (nineteen years ago)

What's their original rhythm section up to now?

― js (honestengine), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:50 (nineteen years ago)

they are in a band called no things.

― m.c. (clikatowi), Thursday, 23 February 2006 19:52 (nineteen years ago)

The female/male issue never crossed my mind.

Isn't this part of the point?

xpost

― regular roundups (Dave M), Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:40 (nineteen years ago)

Liars confirmed for Sonar. (!)

― Cousin yogurt beard (nordicskilla), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:01 (nineteen years ago)

Now, is this only available as an import or was there a domestic release (for North America, cuz I'm in Canada). I haven't been able to find it in stores (and I'm refusing to download) and keep hearing March as the actual release.

― Binjominia (Brilhante), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:08 (nineteen years ago)

It was released yesterday.

― Cousin yogurt beard (nordicskilla), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:09 (nineteen years ago)

So this is leaping beyond what Melissa is saying about this album, but I do want to bring it up. Umm, here's Jessica Hopper doing her anti-noise crusader thing in this year's P&J comments:

See, dudes, like Yoda says, there is no try, there is only do, and this squawky noise blast / nazi-porn-racism anti-music / Jim Goad drunk on Ivy League semiotics and bukkake—it's all try and no "do." And I know that that, supposedly, IS your point, but like, I mean, really—HOW IS THAT A POINT IN 2005 A.D.? It's not.

I feel like there's a bit of shared ground between that and what Melissa's saying. (A lot of divergence, too, though; Hopper seems anti-noise, Melissa just wants noise to be good.) And in a lot of cases, I think I agree with it -- or at least I think it points to a problem that certain parts of the current noise crop are struggling with. There's a big and useful emphasis on the "trying" part -- the breaking-down of things into a raw, fluid state. But then it's kind of an open question whether a band is actually going to build it back up into something different. When they do: sweet. When they don't ... well, a lot of times I have a similar reaction to Melissa's, which is that some bands here really expose how their sounds work -- they make public what it sounds like to be in a room right next to a drum kit, or what it sounds like to really break down sounds with your pedals. And, well, especially if you've done those things yourself, it's easy to get that reaction: "so?"

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:26 (nineteen years ago)

NB that's not really meant to class Liars as the kind of noise Hopper is talking about -- just saying that the same challenge is in operation. Liars remain more successful at it than plenty of others. (I've seen one too many bands in Brooklyn whose point seemed to be something like "this is what musical implements sound like when you're not really doing anything with them," which makes me go "duh, dude, the rest of us have fucked around with patch cords too.")

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:30 (nineteen years ago)

so...is there a region code on the dvd?

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:32 (nineteen years ago)

I don't necessarily think that kind of transparency of execution is anything inherently bad. In fact, I usually hate it when other musicians (or fans) dis a band because they're "just playing presets" or something. If I like a song, usually one of the last things I think about is if they messed w/the presets. (actually, I'm more apt to dis a band that sounds like they spend too much time messing w/sounds at the expense of developing their music in other ways). Melissa's complaint about doing something interesting w/the sound is something I've often said myself in reference to songs, but I can't think of any reason why using all presets would have to prevent a song from being interesting. There is a notion to transparency in general though, not sure I can put my finger on it...

― Dominique (dleone), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:40 (nineteen years ago)

Liars confirmed for Sonar. (!)

-- Cousin yogurt beard

Where did you hear this? There's nothing up on the Sonar site yet.

― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

..actually, I know it has something to do w/form. Not really in the sense of verse-chorus-verse, but in the way the sounds interract with each other, or the shape of the phrases...pardon my hippieness, but talk of intrinsic form does this to me. If the forms in a piece of music seem too rudimentary to me, it turns me off. Which is a far cry from saying simplicity is bad - truly magnificent, inspiring form is beyond simple, it almost seems inevitable, divine, a miracle that someone was able to come up with it. This Liars record for example, though I have not lived days on end with it, seems maybe a bit, I don't know, lacking in elegance, lacking in forms that beg to create new forms, and build on themselves in a way that knock my brain for a loop, my heart a-beating. They seem just to lay still, to be gone when the song is gone. They are simplistic squares and blocks rather than simple curves and spirals, which gets translated to my post as "not very interesting".

but since I can't argue for objectivity, it's hard to say that kind of stuff without feeling like I'm trolling someone :/

― Dominique (dleone), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

If the the forms in a piece of music seem too rudimentary to me, it turns me off...
...lacking in elegance, lacking in forms that beg to create new forms, and build on themselves in a way that knock my brain for a loop, my heart a-beating. They seem just to lay still, to be gone when the song is gone. They are simplistic squares and blocks rather than simple curves and spirals, which gets translated to my post as "not very interesting".
This is exactly it. Except with more pejoratives.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Thursday, 23 February 2006 22:03 (nineteen years ago)

I've not heard this new Liars, but I think generally adding Hopper's quote to this discussion is sorta off track. Seems to me Liars (and I did hear the last record and enjoyed it for it's fuckedupedness but only listened to it maybe a handful of times) are essentially a pop band doing experimental rock, and feeding off of song-based influences, Can or not. Whereas the NOISE JH is talking about is not pop in that its aims (as I see it) are dismantling something to take a different view towards it, more of a dada appraoch, etc. Alas, while Liars may be moving towards that place, their thing, which they continue to rebel against in a bid to remain interesting, is the song. Isn't it?

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 23 February 2006 22:15 (nineteen years ago)

Alas, while Liars may be moving towards that place, their thing, which they continue to rebel against in a bid to remain interesting, is the song. Isn't it?

Yes, but the point is precisely that the songs aren't interesting. And, as pop songs, I think they fail miserably, as they lack any substance.

― Turangalila (Salvador), Friday, 24 February 2006 00:04 (nineteen years ago)

Discussion of this album's merits seems particularly subjective; it seems like the sounds of the album either please you on a gut level or they fall flat. My listening experience went something like this: on first (second, third) listen I enjoyed the immediacy of the emphasis on drumming but I felt like the album didn't really "do" a whole lot, as I continued to listen I started picking up on certain parts of the album as being particularly beautiful moments (i.e. the beginning of "drum gets a glimpse" after being visited by an insistent drum beat for four minutes), and now after having listened to it 15-20 times I often get the vaguely religious vocal chants stuck in my head along with guitar melodies and sometimes just odd noises.
I think the notion that the band isn't inspired and doesn't really believe in what they're doing is not remotely valid ("It sounds joyless and monotonous and uninspired, as if they bored even themselves to death while making it."--Melissa); they're obviously very into um, drums, as their evolution as a band has taken them in a more and more rhythm-centric direction. They seem very interested in their subject matter and I think they communicate their interest well, I buy into the whole atmosphere of the album, but whether or not someone else does might be entirely subjective, I'm not sure.

For the people who don't like this album, what would you put on instead? I know Melissa said Tago Mago, but to me it doesn't really come that close to the feel of Drum's Not Dead, in Can's music there seems to be much more emphasis on jazz influence (long, winding improvisation) and less on pure rhythm.

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Friday, 24 February 2006 00:10 (nineteen years ago)

I think, if just comparing sonics, I'd put on This Heat. In fact, the last album in parts seemed like an homage to This Heat, circa Deceit, and this one close to some of the stuff on the s/t, Repeat (or, ha, the Tago Mago cassette!)

― Dominique (dleone), Friday, 24 February 2006 00:19 (nineteen years ago)

What if one weren't just comparing sonics? That's probably a little bit harder.

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Friday, 24 February 2006 00:30 (nineteen years ago)

Discussion of this album's merits seems particularly subjective
Well, yes. I think it was Tim Finney who once said that all of our discussions about music won't move beyond the level of our own subjective reactions---I think most of us here agree on that.

I think the notion that the band isn't inspired and doesn't really believe in what they're doing is not remotely valid ("It sounds joyless and monotonous and uninspired, as if they bored even themselves to death while making it."--Melissa); they're obviously very into um, drums, as their evolution as a band has taken them in a more and more rhythm-centric direction.

Perhaps Melissa is wrong. Maybe they were, in actuality, quite excited whilst recording this album. However, I think the point remains that that excitement, if indeed it was present, didn't translate/reflect onto anything in terms of exploring different sonic possibilities. It's a very limited palette, and, as Dominique pointed out, the resulting sketches are unremarkably simplistic.

For the people who don't like this album, what would you put on instead?
Anything else. ;-)

― Turangalila (Salvador), Friday, 24 February 2006 01:01 (nineteen years ago)

x-post

hmm, not comparing sonics (which I might regard as a stylistic element - god I sound like an alien to myself sometimes), it's hard to compare forms and content to other records, chiefly because, like I posted earlier, I don't tend to listen to records that don't seem interesting to me formally, at least a little bit. If we're talking big blocks of structure, big blocks of interraction that don't necessarily evolve or change over time, or are particularly interesting in their own rights, maybe I could say I'd put on the last Orthrelm record. Obviously this is worlds away, stylistically speaking, from the Liars record, but it does involve big, basically simple chunks of monolothic, not extremely inventive forms as a matter of construction. Why I find OV a lot more interesting is 1) because its "parts" seem to pass by quickly (even though in reality, they don't - in fact, it's a very *slow* record in the respect that it takes a long time for different stuff to happen - itself a neat "trick"), so I don't have tons of time to contemplate on its relatively static forms, and 2) it uses its form against itself - that is, it's blasting along for 45 minutes, seemingly never changing (but actually changing), and rather than get bored, I'm lulled ever closer to the smallest details of what's happening. The "big blocks" of activity, of sound, no longer seem like blocks, but of circuits or coastlines or equations that beg to be deconstructed, to be tracked inch by inch. In that light, it seems ultra-intense, unlike my experience with Drum's Not Dead, which is ironically a pretty dead, uneventful experience.

but to be honest, I haven't lived with Liars' record anywhere near as long as I've lived with OV. I was initially drawn to OV just because I thought it sounded cool, and not having that draw with Drum's Not Dead is a big disadvantage

― Dominique (dleone), Friday, 24 February 2006 01:08 (nineteen years ago)

This record sounds nothing like Tago Mago.

― cdwill (cdwill), Friday, 24 February 2006 01:26 (nineteen years ago)

I was just listening to it again. One of my issues with it is with the melodies. They never go anywhere, which makes their randomness kind of obvious. There's no melodic peaks, no tension/release; they're just there... meandering about, floating and adding nothing but the singer's Beck-with-laryngitis voice.

― Turangalila (Salvador), Friday, 24 February 2006 01:29 (nineteen years ago)

Unfortunately. x-post

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Friday, 24 February 2006 01:29 (nineteen years ago)

Like I said, I know the stuff Hopper's talking about is quite different from Liars. But I think the distinction she's talking about -- try vs. do -- is something that's still at issue, on a different level, for Liars. That make sense?

Dom, my complaint on this one isn't to do with accusing these bands of laziness or ease or insufficient meddling (the "presets" issue). I am not against transparency; I'm just not sure that transparency alone excites me. And I do feel like certain acts these days deconstruct their sound to that point of transparency, and deconstruct their form to the point of chaos, and then on some level there's not much left to appreciate. Possibly it's that they believe in formal chaos as an end in itself, which I'm not sure I do; typically when I like something "chaotic" it's because the chaos seems like a side-effect of struggling to create an entirely new kind of "form" (and because it sets that "form" into really stark relief).

This is definitely a side/tangent issue to Liars, though.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 24 February 2006 01:38 (nineteen years ago)

Turangalila:
"Well, yes. I think it was Tim Finney who once said that all of our discussions about music won't move beyond the level of our own subjective reactions---I think most of us here agree on that."

Yeah, I'm not new to that concept, that's why I used the qualifier "particularly." Also, do we really want to admit that any discussion of this stuff is pointless?

"Perhaps Melissa is wrong. Maybe they were, in actuality, quite excited whilst recording this album. However, I think the point remains that that excitement, if indeed it was present, didn't translate/reflect onto anything in terms of exploring different sonic possibilities. It's a very limited palette, and, as Dominique pointed out, the resulting sketches are unremarkably simplistic."--you

"They seem very interested in their subject matter and I think they communicate their interest well, I buy into the whole atmosphere of the album, but whether or not someone else does might be entirely subjective, I'm not sure."--me
I don't think simplicity makes it seem less inspired or unremarkable, I could just as easily say its very "focused."

Also, I think it's weird that you'd say there is no "tension/release," because it seems to me that tension and release is a big part of the album.

― Matt McEver (mattmc387), Friday, 24 February 2006 02:18 (nineteen years ago)

I was only pointing out that it seemed you were remarking on the obvious. I don't really see how the reactions to this album album could be more "particularly" subjective than the reaction to any other album. And I suppose your "focused" is my "monotonous."

― Turangalila (Salvador), Friday, 24 February 2006 03:19 (nineteen years ago)

Only heard this the once so far and wasn't really in a situation where I could give it all my attention, so maybe I ought to just shut up. Only came away with quite a blurry impression of it, but then again, on the whole it's possibly quite a blurry album. Nicely narcoleptic. Possibly stating the obvious: there's a similar kind of bored tension to it as Confusion Is Sex-era Sonic Youth perhaps. Was also reminded a lot of the Microphones' Mount Eerie, all that primitive drumming and chanting, and the music moving in and out of focus in sort of an elemental fashion. There's that whole mountain myth making thing too, but I haven't really got my head around the concept of either record enough to elaborate much. I don't know what it all means at the moment, but I think I like it.

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 24 February 2006 10:31 (nineteen years ago)

this album is the best, it's greater than arctic monkeys, the strokes, and chinese democracy COMBINED. take that!

― latebloomer: My Baby's A Labrador, He's Beautiful (latebloomer), Friday, 24 February 2006 11:46 (nineteen years ago)

(seriously though, its really really good)

― latebloomer: My Baby's A Labrador, He's Beautiful (latebloomer), Friday, 24 February 2006 11:47 (nineteen years ago)

Having listened a few more times, I think it's .... just okay. Drum and the Uncomfortable Can, It Fit When I Was a Kid, Drum Gets a Glimpse and the last track are all cool .... the rest end up sounding like inferior variations of these, IMO. I definitely don't think the whole thing is pointless or horrible or whatever, but it seems like they could have used some more ideas ....

― Renard (Renard), Friday, 24 February 2006 23:46 (nineteen years ago)

i like the sparseness of it: it reminds me, and forgive me if i said this upthread, of "the key of dreams" by section 25 (and some of S25's early singles). that sense of stripped-down/pared-back/post-punk experimentation. what i suppose i love about this band is that they don't sound like "musicians" experimenting because they're bored with being able to play "properly", but dudes experimenting because they're eager to ... well, just to play, in every sense of the word.

it is, for me, quite a primal thing: matt mcever sums it up neatly. there are moments where almost nothing is happening, but fuck me: i love the way it happens. or doesn't. if you see what i mean.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 25 February 2006 01:54 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, vut is there a region code on the dvd?

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Saturday, 25 February 2006 02:08 (nineteen years ago)

"pal: all regions" it says on mine, in minuscule lettering. it's a promo, but i can't see why it'd be any different to the real - UK, anyway - release.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 25 February 2006 02:11 (nineteen years ago)

i could have seen them in glasgow tonight, incidentally. but i had prior commitments. gah.

i need to watch the films. the third one especially.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Saturday, 25 February 2006 02:22 (nineteen years ago)

Okay, I'm new to this band, having bought the CD today. Heard a lot of good things about them but these good things tend to boil down to "they're great!" which tells me very little. On cursory listens they sound like a sort of rubbish version of Black Dice with a little bit of Animal Collective thrown in but without the impact of either band. Am I missing something here?

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

get the last album, it beautiful. i haven't listened to this new one yet, cause it's released on the 21st here.

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 17:42 (nineteen years ago)

Am I missing something here?

yes. they're great!

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 18:24 (nineteen years ago)

Pah. This album is gash.

― Wax Cat (Wax Cat), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 18:36 (nineteen years ago)

I agree with grimly fiendish. I always find this kind of experimental music easy to admire but hard to love, but I'm absolutely addicted to 'Drum's Not Dead'. Can't shake it. Awesome album that fully realises Liars' potential. Where they go next should be really interesting.

― yer mam! (yer mam!), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 18:42 (nineteen years ago)

[...]they sound like a sort of rubbish version of Black Dice with a little bit of Animal Collective thrown in but without the impact of either band. Am I missing something here?
-- dog latin (doglati...), March 8th, 2006. (dog latin) (link)

No, you summed it up quite well. And no, there is nothing "experimental" about this. In fact, that's a part of the problem. It's just... such a nonentity.

― Turangalila (Salvador), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 18:46 (nineteen years ago)

i heard "room on the broom" after it was recommended to me and it didn't move me. and i like noise and psychedelia and postpunk and all that stuff to bits. that said, i listened to the new one again and it's slowly growing on me. a little too early to tell i suppose, but i do wonder what all the fuss is about when we've already got bands like Black Dice and the Lowdown who do something very very similar. there are bits on this record that sound like they were lifted right out of "beaches and canyons" and others that sound like a post-hardcore "sung tongs".

i'll probably be back in a month gushing about how much i love this band, knowing me.

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 19:13 (nineteen years ago)

ha! just read the whole thread (should have before posting). People are very polarised by this record.

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 19:47 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, and am I the only one who noticed the section that sounds really similar to the Byrds "You Showed Me". I also noticed the "Softest Voice" similarity mentioned upthread. There's also also also a bit that sounds like it was lifted straight from the rolling wave sounds in "Endless Happiness" by Black Dice.

I reckon though that it's all gonna click and I'm gonna love this album one day.

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 19:51 (nineteen years ago)

Black Dice are too self-conciously "difficult" for me tbh
Animal Collective I just can't get past the vocals (ugh) or the... actually I'm not sure I can define it, but it doesn't work for me (though I admire & respect them in theory).

Liars are more like a happy medium to me and not 'difficult' to appreciate/enjoy at all!

I don't think this record fully delivers on it's promise as an album however (it's the "songs" mainly) but I'm glad I heard it, because they don't sound lazy, and DO sound like a band who could actually take rock forward to somewhere... and that's a bit of a rare quality right now.

― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

funny, i think liars would be greatly improved if the guys had better singing voices. what do you not like about the AC vocals par-hasard?

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not sure.. but I think it's the same thing I dislike in whatever freak-folk! Is that an answer?

Maybe it seems like an attempt at primitivism or naivity that comes across incredibly mannered and inauthentic & deliberately "ooh weird & childish" about it all (yes I know there's rockism in there).

By contrast (to the music) the fairly average male rock guy voices of Liars come across as oddly refreshing!

I very much doubt I've heard enough of AC's ouvre to be certain about all this though.

― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 20:22 (nineteen years ago)

AC's vocals are always different, though...I think they add an uncomfortable element to Feels, but the euphoric harmonizing is what stops Sung Tongs from being too experimental - the melody gives it a base...i feel the same with Drum's Not Dead...for instance, the melody of the last song ends the album on its highest note and leaves the listener feeling warm, but elsewhere (towards the albums end) its often too monotonous, which is how I felt about a lot of their last album (though that was hampered more by the muddy production)

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 20:33 (nineteen years ago)

yeh, AC vocals do sound pretty different from song to song.

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

I'm pretty much in agreement re: ST vs. Feels (much more awkward on a first impression) but I need to hear them both properly still.

― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 20:37 (nineteen years ago)

the vocals on sung tongs are better than feels (which still sounds like mercury rev's singer), but it's down to taste. i really like the whole beach boys-go-apeshit vibe on ST.

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 20:52 (nineteen years ago)

life is a pigsty

― noizem duke (noize duke), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 20:55 (nineteen years ago)

All these Animal Collective comparisons baffle me. Same w/ Black Dice.

Has anybody heard the new Young People? I'm really digging it right now, it's a sister to Drum's Not Dead — carefully plotted, spare, lots of tribal thrumping, creepy vibey. The two records sound GREAT back-to-back.

― Dr. Gene Scott (shinybeast), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 02:27 (nineteen years ago)

I reckon Liars would sound better with higher production values. Sometimes I want the sounds to kick me in the face but they fall a bit flat.

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 10:43 (nineteen years ago)

I think they'd sound completely average & really normal with better production values. I love the production on this record, even if the record itself didn't leave as lasting an impression as I'd hoped.

― file under cozy techno (fandango), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 11:40 (nineteen years ago)

never heard the last one but listening to the Other Music samples now and there's a definate This Heat vibe going on...minus the prog drumming though. Sounds really good.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 23 March 2006 19:17 (nineteen years ago)

Dan, last one even more so

― Dominique (dleone), Thursday, 23 March 2006 19:45 (nineteen years ago)

you'll love it dan. i think it's totally yr kinda record. (i adore it)

― Jams Murphy (ystrickler), Thursday, 23 March 2006 19:49 (nineteen years ago)

this is what i wanted the new tv on the radio album to sound like. instead that album sounded like shit. drums not dead is great.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 23 March 2006 19:57 (nineteen years ago)

"All these Animal Collective comparisons baffle me. Same w/ Black Dice."

that's funny. listening to it with people last night who hadn't heard it yet, the comments all were along the lines of "when did beck join black dice?" and "so, these guys have been hanging out with the animal collective, huh."

― prince rupert, Thursday, 23 March 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

this album continues to grow on me....so hypnotic and just seems to occupy its own little universe...

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 23 March 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

this album totally won me over, in the end. live it was a lot more INYRFACE and PIERCING though. and a lot of fun

― willem -- (willem), Thursday, 23 March 2006 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

no liars no credulity

― noizem duke (noize duke), Thursday, 23 March 2006 20:46 (nineteen years ago)

tru dat.

have you guys heard ft(The Shadow Government)? their album Guns of August I could see appealing to Liars fans...

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 23 March 2006 20:59 (nineteen years ago)

i luv the cover art

― meth lab for doug flutie (sanskrit), Thursday, 23 March 2006 21:13 (nineteen years ago)

to echo various people upthread, if you like this and haven't heard they were wrong so we drowned, check that out too. it's about as good as drum's not dead, if not a little better.

― sleep (sleep), Thursday, 23 March 2006 22:04 (nineteen years ago)

i definitely didn't hate the last record...but i never found a compelling reason to put it on repeatedly. i've probably already listened to drum's not dead more times than they were wrong... and i've only had the former for like a week.

― m.c. (clikatowi), Thursday, 23 March 2006 22:27 (nineteen years ago)

Has anyone else had ploblems playing this on a computer (PC)? I played it before, but now a couple of days later, my computer won't even recognize it as a cd.

― T. Weiss (Timmy), Monday, 3 April 2006 01:13 (nineteen years ago)

T. Weiss, maybe you have the vinyl version like I do?

― mikko (mikko), Monday, 3 April 2006 10:46 (nineteen years ago)

Are you in Europe? I heard that Mute's Can reissues were copy-protected, at least in Europe (my US copies work fine). Hopefully this isn't the case; it would suck and suck hard for an indie to start putting copy-protection on their releases.

― Telephonething (Telephonething), Monday, 3 April 2006 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

I'm in the U.S. It's really weird because I played it like three times then a couple of days later I insterted it and its not even recognized (its a version with the dvd). Its pretty maddenning since this is how I listen to most of my music. Any advice?

― T. Weiss (Timmy), Monday, 3 April 2006 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

do all other cd's play fine?

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Monday, 3 April 2006 22:17 (nineteen years ago)

suck hard for an indie

owned by EMI

― jeff rosenberg (pukeandburn), Monday, 3 April 2006 22:30 (nineteen years ago)

owned by EMI

Really? Did not know that. That's worrying, then.

Is there a Philips Compact Disc logo anywhere on the packaging? And does anyone else have this issue? I was going to buy Drum's Not Dead over the weekend, but if it's at all copy-protected then I'm going straight to p2p.

― Telephonething (Telephonething), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 00:07 (nineteen years ago)

mine wasn't copy protected at all. there's probably something wrong with the weiss guy's pc.

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 00:10 (nineteen years ago)

there's probably something wrong with the weiss guy's pc.
if this is the case, does any one have any suggestions, as its my primary use for playing music. all of my other cds play fine.

― T. Weiss (Timmy), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 04:04 (nineteen years ago)

Only after the first time I took it out of my computer did I have any problem, I didn't however notice any Philips logo.

― T. Weiss (Timmy), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 04:07 (nineteen years ago)

isn't this some "enhanced" cd with a billion videos on it? (not a DVD?)

not to get tech support on you but some exact details of how it's going unrecognised, error messages & such could be useful. also, do they have a forum or anything? I'd expect more than one person to have had this problem, you might want to look there.

― fandango (fandango), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 07:43 (nineteen years ago)

when i put it in my computer, i can see that there is, apart form the audio files, also a jpg of the cover on the cd. i guess that's a way to make it copy-protected.

― thomas, Tuesday, 4 April 2006 07:54 (nineteen years ago)

Depends what ripping program you use, I have no problem ripping the audio (but not the data files) with Exact Audio Copy. How iTunes etc handles it all I have no idea...

I'm surprised you can't see the video files (got "show hidden files" unticked in tools>folder options?) but I've had problems myself on some discs being able to access multimedia stuff with obscure ways of presenting itself.

― fandango (fandango), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 08:43 (nineteen years ago)

i ripped mine with creative media source or something like that. i listened to it in itunes a few times, too.

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 16:15 (nineteen years ago)

i've had no problems playing/ripping my copy in my pc. there's no compact disc logo anywhere to be found, but i think "brilliant box" packaging generally doesn't have the logo in its usual place (the disc tray). oh, and no videos on the cd -- why would there be when the album comes with a dvd?

― spastic heritage (spastic heritage), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 17:08 (nineteen years ago)

The CD won't even be recognized in my drive. When I get info on my D Drive, it says 0 mbs free and 0 mbs used. Very frustrating.

― T. Weiss (Timmy), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

maybe your cd is damaged?

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 18:50 (nineteen years ago)

just buy it on vinyl geniuses

― jinx hijinks (sanskrit), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 19:11 (nineteen years ago)

The only way to tell is to try it on another drive or another CD player. It's the scientific method. Observation: disc is unrecognized. Hypothesis: the disc is fucked. Prediction: the disc will fail on any CD player. Experiment: Try disc on another CD player. If disc works, disc is not fucked. New observation: computer disc player is inconsistent at best.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 19:28 (nineteen years ago)

"My room has been plunged into darkness. Is my light bulb dead?? What should I do????"

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 19:30 (nineteen years ago)

Well I tried it other cd players, and it works fine. Just won't play on my computer anymore (haven't had a chance to try it on other computers)

― T. Weiss (Timmy), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

Are we really through with this album already? Really? I'd say Radiohead have some competition when they return.

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Sunday, 23 April 2006 11:26 (nineteen years ago)

aren't they touring now or very soon?

― nervous.gif (eman), Sunday, 23 April 2006 15:47 (nineteen years ago)

Well, they're playing Seattle June 10.

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Sunday, 30 April 2006 04:15 (nineteen years ago)

i love this album.

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Sunday, 30 April 2006 04:22 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think they're going to trouble Radiohead much in the songwriting department...

But sonically, I hear what you're saying.

I'm v.much hoping Radiohead have some surprises left in them, but also fearing they won't :(

― fandango (fandango), Sunday, 30 April 2006 05:09 (nineteen years ago)

Of all the comments on this thread, Dog Latins original take is spot on.

― mei (mei), Sunday, 30 April 2006 08:28 (nineteen years ago)

swinging through australia this week. they're playing new stuff in their set which is of a more sraightahead rock direction, according to street press interview I read.

― lil' merzbow wow (haitch), Sunday, 30 April 2006 08:36 (nineteen years ago)

I would just like to say that I still don't think this album can compete with Tago Mago or Can in general, and for that reason I appreciated Melissa's post above (along with an awful lot of February posts above - I really missed out!). But it's still pretty damn cool. Whoever first said it was related to Flowers of Romance, I can see that too, without Lydon's stamp of individuality, that is.

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Sunday, 30 April 2006 22:35 (nineteen years ago)

from radiohead's blog thingy...

happy easter

liars >drums not dead
berlin must be a good place to work

http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Monday, 1 May 2006 02:15 (nineteen years ago)

Are we really through with this album already?

not at all. my album of the year by some way, so far. mind, i don't feel i'm doing a good job keeping up with new stuff at all right now.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

parts of this album seem to have a coil-scatology influence.

― kephm (kephm), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 01:02 (nineteen years ago)

Thom often has suspect taste in music. Kinda want to shake him for seeing anything in this album. But ah well.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 02:52 (nineteen years ago)

why? this album's great!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 02:59 (nineteen years ago)

One of my favorites this year. Still listening to it almost weekly. That Thom's got a good ear, Mel! Even the EPs are decent. (Great artwork, too:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000E5L8BQ.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_V57053822_.jpg

RAHHHHH!!!)

― Ryan Pitchfork (Ryan Pitchfork), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 04:33 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's a really great album, with Booka shade it's one of only two new albums I've listened to extensively this year.

That EP cover seriously rocks.

― jimnaseum wastes the taxpayer's money, Wednesday, 3 May 2006 06:15 (nineteen years ago)

yes awesome cover

― sleep (sleep), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 13:59 (nineteen years ago)

it seems someone has been listenig to Byzantum per mayhaps?

― Mr. Vas Djifrens (byzantum), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 14:06 (nineteen years ago)

I had this playing quietly while driving at about one in the morning and the others in the car thought it sounded like music to sleep to. It's kind of true, though.

― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 16:28 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

still love this album.
i found a pretty sweet video of them doing a nirvana cover, but can't seem to find it now.

― Christopher Costello (CGC), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

argh, thanks for reminding me that I still haven't gotten my copy back from the friend I lent it to

― bernard snow (sixteen sergeants), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 22:15 (nineteen years ago)

i still can't get into this album but they were absolutely great live a month or so ago

― david allen grier (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 23:20 (nineteen years ago)

I like this a lot, and hated all their previous stuff.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 23:28 (nineteen years ago)

Still really glad I heard this but that whole weak concept-instead-of-songs thing got underwhelming real fast. Pretty easy to delete.

― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 00:11 (nineteen years ago)

"It Fit When I Was A Kid" excepted...

― fandango (fandango), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 00:12 (nineteen years ago)

I really did not enjoy their live show at all. it was basically identical to the record, except with a really smelly dude somewhere in close proximity to me

― bernard snow (sixteen sergeants), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 00:14 (nineteen years ago)

live show I saw was just so-so until the encore, then "Broken Witch" blew my head open ... made the whole thing worth it

― dmr (Renard), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 00:39 (nineteen years ago)

def. one of the best records of the year. all NY hipster post-punk bands need to move to Berlin and record in old communist radio studios and become infatuated w/ the idea of "the drum".

― La Monte (La Monte), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 01:17 (nineteen years ago)

three years pass...

The DVD with it, which I initially assumed to contain videos for three different songs, actually contains three different videos for the entire album!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, February 21, 2006 5:26 PM

i thought the same and had totally forgotten that disc was there until the other day when i skimmed through it. very ambitious, so used to getting lame bonus shit with cds (lol interactive cd-roms?) and this really pisses on all that

― am0n, Thursday, 3 September 2009 16:45 (sixteen years ago)

eleven years pass...

(face with heart-eyes emoji)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAz_9GX-hsI

― sean gramophone, Wednesday, 5 May 2021 15:31 (four years ago)

think emojis work here, don't they? let's give it a go.

😍

― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 5 May 2021 15:34 (four years ago)

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