New Liars album: 1 star in rolling stone, F in Spin

usually i like rubbish records but this is more boring than 'wow, that's really messed up'.

This is what I thought when I saw all the hateration, and I was all excited about it... then I heard it. Execrable. And yes, really boring because all the songs are rubbish and unlistenable in the same way.

In the Melody Maker era under Mark Sutherland this was often typical, they would dish out 4/5 marks for trad rock rubbish and give experimental/ avant albums low scores.

The Liars track completely split the 6 Music chatroom a couple weeks ago - there were those that thought it was revolting noise, others saying at last some different/creative / cathartic / unusual.

It will interesting to see the metacritic music score for this album.

Stevie Chick in Kerrang gave the Liars the full 5K.

seriously though if you want bad lo-fi shriekback noise b-side exercises, get the liars album. yawn. i'll trade you mind for some crack.

1000 Hurts is nowhere near At Action Park, but it has some nice parts.

but yes, its just a bad album.

the first signs of the pil shakes on the postpunxx revolutionaries. WE HAVE NO IDEAS. WAIT. WE CAN ALWAYS DO THIS..??

Anyway, i hear similar sounds to Cabaret Voltaire's Nag Nag Nag - on this new Liars single.

This is utter horseshit. Which one of the critics had "trad" tastes? And I suppose no morons out there give "extreme/ abrasive/ caustic/ experimental" crap the benefit of the doubt either, right? Truth be told the Liars' debut album wasn't all that great in the first place. I didn't make it through the new one, partly because there's way more interesting "extreme/ abrasive/ caustic/ experimental" music to spend time with these days. Not to mention much better "trad" music.

which one of these critics had trad taste: many no-mark planks that mark sutherland bought into the Melody Maker from 1997 onwards, in place of excellent critics such as selzer, reynolds and stubbs etc ..even Simon Price left as he had the guts to tell Mark Sutherland that Oasis live were shite.

my definition of trad tates, would be rock music that is playlisted on radio [structured song oriented rock music that is played on radio:]

and THE exclusion of anything different [avant jazz, ambient, post rock, dark/ extreme metal, Industrial, goth/ darkwave/ ethereal, microhouse/ tech-house, post-punk, avant prog, experimental electronic music etc ]

that is playlisted on Virgin Radio [in the UK], Radio 1, and daytime Xfm and 6 Music - plus the artists commonly supported by NME and Q,

an indicative example of trad rock tastes: would be music played on Virgin Radio [in the UK]
http://www.virginradio.co.uk/

Translated into American speak - rock music that would be playlisted on Clear Channel [Modern] Rock stations, featured in Spin and Rolling Stone.

Martian, you're doing yourself no favors with your equation of "popular" and "bad"

I don't know if I agree w/ Martian, but I thought the equation he was making was "popular" and "trad"

It's also wonderful to learn that commercial radio never plays any music that contains "anything different."

RIP Liars, new album is pabulum.

This however was fucking great.

Was and is.

remember this

This album was ~*very important*~ to my small group of friends in high school. We saw them play it in a church in Chicago and thought it the best show ever. I haven't listened to this in 10 years, though.

they were wrong so we drowned: still the best liars album

happy halloween

I feel like all of their albums up to Mess are the best liars album, and I only chop it off there because I haven't heard the later ones.

Brad OTM - I saw them play just before Drum's Not Dead and the feeling of being in a totally wired crowd of about 200 chanting "WE ARE THE ARMY YOU SEE THROUGH THE RED HAZE OF BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD!" is a lifetime memory.
Tim there's only one since Mess apart from a soundtrack, and it's Angus solo after Aaron decided not to continue (hence the jilted bride cover art). I really like Theme From Crying Fountain though, more than Mess even. God I hope they get the trio back together sometime when they feel fresh again.

I think he just released another Liars album a month ago, confusingly titled Titles with the Word Fountain. Presumably a sequel of sorts.

Yeah it's outtakes, I don't count it as another album per se but in some ways it's just as good.

This album was ~*very important*~ to my small group of friends in high school.

Same, we were obsessed with the opening tracks in particular.

Drum's Not Dead was so hard to follow up, almost like they ran out of left turns after that. What a brilliant record. Have tried but not been able to stay w/ them since

I loved the more melodic self-titled at the time, but kind of stopped following along after that. They were fantastic live ca. 2008.

They Were Wrong and Drum's Not Dead are the albums I really care about.

I liked the first record when it came out but I wasn't as hyped on it as seemingly everyone else I knew was, but so I was still pretty interested in the 2nd record and I remember when I read that Spin review I was like "oh shit now I am REALLY excited for this record!"

So good, still probably but I haven't listened in a while, though it was semi-perm brain-tape for a long time. Drum's Not Dead never blew up my skirts, though I feel like I saw them live around that time and was impressed how fucked up & no wave ugly they were live, esp when it seemed like the crowd really wanted them to be cool Radiohead or something.

Also I forgot how much the music press in 99-00 was "finally...rock music is BACK!" cuz there was like 1.5 rock bands in NYC

man what was up with the spin and rolling stone reviews for They Were Wrong? does anyone have the full text? the only thing i can find (via the metacritic page is:

RS: "An electronic-noise collage that sounds disturbingly rooted in the what-the-fuck? tradition of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music."
Spin: "Unlistenable."

who rises to the rank of pro music critic and then can't handle They Were Wrong So We Drowned, jfc

(sorry if someone here wrote it)

Spin: https://books.google.ca/books?id=9VQ5UluNUkIC&lpg=PA96

Rolling Stone: https://web.archive.org/web/20080630074454/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/liars/albums/album/5003637/review/5941581/they_were_wrong_so_we_drowned

this album slaps

thanks jmm!

spin:

https://i.imgur.com/tB104wv.png

RS:

During the recent New York rock revival, Liars established themselves as one of the city's more exciting live acts, spazzing out onstage while six-foot-six-inch Australian lead singer Angus Andrew screamed half-intelligibly over the band's funk-punk pulse. That pulse is absent on Liars' second album, They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, an electronic-noise collage that sounds disturbingly rooted in the what-the-fuck? tradition of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. Purportedly inspired by a German Halloween-like holiday, "Broken Witch" opens the album with bell-like sound effects and sporadic snare hits, after which Andrew begs someone to tell him the tale of the children who stood in the way of the endless winter. "They Don't Want Your Corn They Want Your Kids" likewise forms a groove out of spastic drumming and electro blips, to no real end. Making a record about fear is one thing; making a record you fear listening to is quite another.

honestly i think making a record that people fear listening to is a lifetime achievement

"spazzbo" "spazzing" "spastic"

who rises to the rank of pro music critic and then can't handle They Were Wrong So We Drowned, jfc

srsly

i'm reading the vines cover story (for their worldbeating second album) in the same issue of spin, lol

ha, I'm reading back through that Spin issue as well. The dog show metaphor in the "Spin's Best in Show" feature is awful.

they were skronk so we clowned

Looking back on those reviews, did either of the reviewers actually listen to the record? The Spin one seems to imply they only made it 13 minutes?

Tbf "I listened to 13 minutes and I thought it sucked so I shut it off" is a kinda of awesome review

kind of feel like your listening experience isn't very broad if you listen to this album and the closest thing you can compare it to is Metal Machine Music

I approve of this new Liars renaissance on here. 'They threw us in a trench" was my first Liars album. I rarely revisit it, but 'Drum's not dead' I still play quite a bit. Everything in between is good to great. I seem to be of the minority opinion that 'TFCF' was a true return to from, somewhat. I love that album.

whatever you say. personally i couldn't make it past the first 20 seconds due to the nightmarish pure noise. the sounds made no sense, i couldn't tell what was happening so i shut it off as soon as i could find the laptop again

First 20 seconds of?

OIC

oops, xp! i was just goofin' at the traumatized spin and RS reviews

I realize! Didn't catch it due to me being dumb

don't call yourself dumb (because then, selfishly, i will have to think of myself for several million similar things i've done)

:D

Their cover of Territorial Pissings that I saw on the Drums Not Dead tour fucking ripped so hard. Kurt would be proud.
I was a huge fan of their first album at the time and was bummed when I read that their drummer and bass player were leaving but both Liars and These Are Powers went on to make some of my favorite music of the last 15 years (that n0 things album was pretty good, too).

I jammed "They Were Wrong" over the wknd and it is still great, sort of funny to think of people, like maybe other than my mom, acting like the record is some unlistenable/noise blast/fuck you album, it's pretty catchy! Also, this was obvious at the time, but no one had ever heard "Flowers of Romance"?

Speaking to it's catchy qualities I just received a report that the 4.5 yo was just heard singing "BLOOD!BLOOD!BLOOD!BLOOD!"

and This Heat of course

I think those people were all geared up for another nyc dance punk record that year, it was like liars owed them something and they were pissy they didn't get it

my only connection to this band is that my bff taught their lead singer how to grow dank hydro weed

and i love them for that

Angus is the only band member left so that hydro must be longevity fuel

heh, it helps get ppl thru things financially i am sure

They Threw Us All in a Trench and Put a Monument on Top was visceral and mesmerizing, it reminded me of how excited I was about post-punk in the 80s

also liked the audacity of the 20-minute long repeated riff at the end

and Stuck a Monument on Top

Best 00s band