Liars, Sisterworld

Liars’ Sisterworld finds the rampant trio on a hellish joyride through a sludgy dystopia. Smothering with an unnerving, atmospheric doom, the toxic air of the album’s most hypnotically foggy moments lulls listeners into a bleary-eyed wasteland. The hiss and gurgle of these oppressive dreamscapes are prone to sudden dissipation, though, as the steely incisors of churning guitars often pierce through the moody drift. Encapsulating the unnerving dynamics of the album, the pummeling chorus rush of lead single “Scissor” mercilessly tramples the more lilting verses. Liars experiment with this chaotic formula over the course of Sisterworld, without quite giving in to the sprawling urges that characterized their early releases. The concussed plod of “Drip” is bedroom life-support set, its dreary electronic discord suggesting the confusion of waking up in intensive care with memories wiped clean. Next, brutally confrontational highlight “Scarecrows on a Killer Slant” ensures that listeners won’t have a second to collect themselves, as frontman Angus Young froths orders (“We should nail their thoughts to the wall/Stand them in the street with a gun/And then kill them all) at his fellow droogs over the massive rise and fall of waves of guitars.

This is Liars at their most disconcerting. Sisterworld feels especially unsettling on the heels of their eponymous fourth album. Though characteristically loud and aggressive, that record found Liars ditching the album-length concepts of their previous releases and featured their most succinct set of songs. Boasting head-banging hybrids of surf pop, biker rock, and anthemic noise that recalled The Jesus and Mary Chain, Sonic Youth, and Nirvana, Liars was full of irresistibly sugary melodies warped by layers of thunderous reverb. The closest relative to Liars here is the snottily cyclonic, acerbic “The Overachievers.” With lyrics like, “We just sat and watched the TV/And smoked weed,” it’s an answer song to the previous album’s peak, the zoned-out mantra “Freak Out.”

Like its predecessor, most of Sisterworld was recorded in Los Angeles. Previously, Liars had jetted across the globe between albums, recording everywhere from Berlin to a cabin in rural New Jersey. Perhaps they’ve remained in L.A. because there was no need for the inspiration that can be gleaned from a change in scenery; on Sisterworld, Liars burrow deeper into their own rabbit hole. From its title suggesting an imagined alternate reality, to the album’s artwork, featuring ornately locked miniature doors; this is a thoroughly insular affair. Liars perfect their singularly eerie brand of pop by upping the production ante. Though Sisterworld’s sound is bulkier and more particular than any previous effort from Liars, every detail is directed toward the construction of a nightmarish atmosphere.

Liars previously explored ambience and on 2004's Drums Not Dead. Here, their gift for crafting evocative soundscapes is wed unholily to their sinister yet addictive songwriting smarts. The childlike catchiness that made songs like Drums’ “The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack” and Liars’ “Pure Unevil” so disarmingly sweet is mutated into the creeping “No Barrier Fun.” ----The initially vulnerable bedroom pop of “An Can Still See an Outside World,” is savagely interrupted by screeching guitars and taunting vocals. Fountain-like electronics add some color to the tense Canisms of “Proud Evolution” and the spiraling horn squalls of “Goodnight Everything” take the song into Spiritualized’s most demented territories. The pan flute keyboards tones of “Too Much, Too Much” provide brightness. The album ender takes a disorienting turn as emotionally vacant, staring-at-the-sun chants pronounce the apocalyptic Sisterworld’s logical conclusion.