Liars - WIXIW (CD, Vinyl LP)

Liars are such an interesting band. You never quite know what you are going to get but every time its always different and never less than impressive.

This album starts off in excellent style with opener ‘The Exact Colour of Doubt’ coming on implausibly like Bibio with warm synths cut up hip hop beats and nice summery vocals. Gorgeous. ‘No 1 Against the Rush’ is another really strong track built up using simple 80’s drum machine, Joy Division bass and a myriad of electronics  and alternately mumbled/keening vocals. This is Liars at their most melodic and mellow and they are all the better for it.

The spectre of Animal Collective is not far away and their tribal rhythms and vocal gymnastics can be heard in the mantra-ish ‘A Ring on Every Finger’ Absolutely top notch stuff. There’s wierder stuff too like ‘Ill Valley Prodigies’ which harks back to their excellent ‘Drums Not Dead’ album  descending into near silence at times with a strange finger picked guitar melody and eerie sound affects.  The title track too is a winner again recalling Animal Collective with spiralling keyboards and a lot mellower and less....well......annoying.  

There may be some who miss the harsher edges of some of their other stuff but six tracks in and I’ve enjoyed every single one of them so unless something goes terribly wrong in the second half this could be one of the albums of the year.