LiarsMess
Create/Control / Mute

- According to the presser, deconstructive dance-punk brats Liars have mastered their anxieties, faced their fears, stared the world full in the face and turned out the hard, bruising dance record we always knew they had in them.

If you think this redemptive narrative matches every Trent Reznor press release ever, then you’re not alone. Mess, the band’s seventh full-length, even sounds a little like Nine Inch Nails. Its world is dense and computerised, positively overstuffed with thumping backbeats and growling synth patches.

It’s difficult to locate Mess in the oeuvre of a band whose career has consisted of a series of startling left turns. The record initially comes off like a step backwards; like an attempt to return to the muscular directness of their 2001 debut, only replacing guitars with beats.

Thus, the first half of the album breaks no ground but strives for hooky hugeness, equal parts dumb and intense. An early standout is the electro stomp of Vox Tuned D.E.D., whose filthy synths bridge some intractable chasm between Fuck Buttons and Justice. It’s genuinely thrilling, but also startlingly conventional for a band whose strength has previously lain in experimentation.

If the bombastic first half of Mess is defined by grimy bangers, the second side is slower, owing more to the startling, petulant foray into minimalist electronica that was 2012’s WIXIW. The influence can be seen in the cloudy post-punk of Boyzone, for instance, or the hypnotic dread of Perpetual Village, whose disco falsetto is chilling. These more ambitious moments provide much-needed respite after the onslaught of the first half.

Unfortunately, though, while it makes for an interesting listen, Mess is ultimately too distant to be enjoyable. It is let down by the production. Whereas the strength of WIXIW lay in its grainy, skeletal fragility, here all personal idiosyncracies are erased. Each element is pushed as far and as loud as it can go, every part polished and glossed until the result is cohesive but also airless and disorienting. This makes for a frustrating listen after a while, especially in the unrelenting first half.

Sadly, in abandoning the instrumentation and approach of previous releases and aiming for hi-fi impact, Liars have almost edited themselves out of their own album. If it weren’t for Angus Andrew’s trademark snarling drawl, this could be anyone’s record.

The only exception is warm centrepiece Can’t Hear Well, a rare example of the beautiful songwriting that Andrew has pulled off on earlier highlights like The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack. The song is all grandiose synth and mumbled melody — all tension and no release — and it’s startlingly beautiful.

It shows Liars are by no means a spent force; they have plenty more to offer. Mess may be frustrating and cold at times, but it’s still too interesting to ignore.

- Henry Reese.

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