The Liars have got creepy nailed. On Sisterworld they combine it with carnivalesque and a splash of nautical. If you weren’t in the loop when the New York three-piece launched their website (www.thesisterworld.com) take a peek now. It’s all the reasons we love them, right there.
The tour of Sisterworld’s haunted (art)house starts with ‘Scissors’, the king hit, the killer single, the track on the record that’ll sell it to a great many people who’ll greatly regret it later. Breaking over listeners with dirgelike despair – harmonies reminiscent of TV on the Radio – ‘Scissors’ then pulls a sucker-punch of catastrophe. The rest of the record is like an attempt to repair the damage from the intense tragedy of this song.
On ‘No Barrier Fun’, singer Angus Andrew sounds strikingly like Beck on the brown acid. ‘Scarecrows on a Killer Slant’ is where things start to get genuinely scary with its grinding, murderous, metallic guitars, pounding beat and subterranean gurgles. There’s nothing pleasant about this song or its dark themes, nothing at all.
‘Proud Evolution’ halts to warn “You should be careful” before a deluge of delay-drenched chimes descends. ‘The Overacheievers’ is a the closest thing to raucous punk the record offers up but for those already freaked out it comes way too late. ‘Too Much Too Much’ (acknowledging what they’ve dragged people through?) is a beautiful percussion-less piece that signals the end of the tour. They’ve unclutched you, you’ve stumbled out the back door, you can breath again.
Sisterworld is another sinister, nocturnal, art rock affair, likely to further piss off critics and enthrall fans. Ah, The Liars. Bringing art rock to the masses, one weird fucking album after another.
