Liars — Liars

It's fair to say that you just can't pin Liars down. At first they were a punk band, snotty like Blur at their darkest and noisy like Sonic Youth at their most dangerous. Liars Pt. 2 was regarded by most to be an indistinguishable noise mess, a disappointment to even their biggest fans. Liars III again represented a major shift in direction, as the trio reinvented themselves through a series of tribal beats and drone pieces to rekindle the hype that had once surrounded them. Liars 4.0 is the best version yet. The group have integrated the best parts of versions one and three to produce a psych rock masterpiece that nobody could have imagined. On "Plaster Casts Of Everything," the Sonic Youth vibe is mined disturbingly well once again, only to give way to "Houseclouds," a track that wouldn't sound out of place on a Portishead album. Many of the other songs vary in these molds, interrupted occasionally by drone pieces that give the self-titled effort the atmosphere of dread that's so synonymous with Liars' music. It always felt as though Angus Andrews and co. could be working towards something truly special. This is it.

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