DRUM'S NOT DEAD was partly inspired by the LIARS' relocation to Berlin from NYC after their 2004 album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. From clanging guitars, martial beats, dense drones and pulverizing rhythms to high dreamy harmonies, off-kilter guitar lines and soothing samples of waves lapping, this is LIARS' finest, fullest and most unexpected album to date. Shredding all past reference points, DRUM'S NOT DEAD sees LIARS taking another seismic step forward, switching continents, seizing new musical territory and expanding their audio-visual ambitions. DRUM'S NOT DEAD comes with its own cinematic sister project - a DVD, with 3 film versions of the album, directed by band members Angus Andrew, Julian Gross & filmmaker Markus Wambsganss. Each film is comprised of videos for every track on the album: 36 videos total. From backstage travelogues to surreal animation and mini sci-fi epics, Liars document the process of recording, touring, then visually reinventing each track. 2 disc package - 1 CD / 1 DVD.
Liars
Drum's Not Dead
[Mute; 2006]
Rating: 9.0
Ditching Berliniamsburg for the real deal, Liars moved to Germany in late 2004 to replant their roots in fresh cultural soil and begin recording their third album in a studio that offered creative possibilities too fertile to resist: The acoustically rich radio facility in the former East Germany boasts a labyrinthine system of rooms, each with its own distinct acoustic advantages. The trio's relocation is sure to be cited as the impetus for the Krautrock-like propulsivity of the resulting LP, but prior to the change of scenery they were exploring this kind of dark percussiveness on 2004's They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. Most listeners had shrugged that album off for its dissimilarity to the band's acclaimed dance-punk debut, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, but while hectic, less refined, and at times sloppy, the underrated They Were Wrong marked the shift in direction that would lead Liars to the ethereal gorgeousness of Drum's Not Dead.
Highlighted by taut improvisation and frontman Angus Andrew's mastery of falsetto, the record's resolute seamlessness may be attributable to growth through practice: Liars wrote and recorded one album, but, not wholly satisfied with the results, decided against releasing it. Instead, that material was used as a blueprint for what became Drum's Not Dead, and in the process, the band cast off They Were Wrong's witches and Walpurgisnacht. Granted, there is still a conceptual libretto, this time centered on the universal struggle between confidence and cowardice. These traits are represented by two characters: the instinctive and assertive Drum, and the pessimistic, apprehensive Mt. Heart Attack. Of course, as with They Were Wrong, any conceptual devices remain secondary to the sound and mood.
"Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack!" perfectly sets the stage, as fractured guitar waves, opiate military percussion, and Andrew's windswept vocals careen into pitch-shifts which slightly deepen the shadows. Segueing into "Let's Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack", Liars let forth a siren call that bears an uncanny resemblance to the first few seconds of Faust's "The Sad Skinhead", then plunge into bubbling floor-tom/cymbal madness that echoes both Liquid Liquid and This Heat. The percussion is corporeal, tapping into some inner biological timepiece, and as on the album's best tracks, guitar notes are employed only as simple pulsing behind layered, seraphic vocals. Completing the mood-setting opening triad, "A Visit From Drum" is linked again by a vocal gasp; a less treated kit accompanies a floor tom/snare and the clattering of sticks for a creepy, mystic sounding incantation. Here and elsewhere, the guitar is an ambient sidekick to high-pitched vocals and tribal drumming.
Those first three songs are the album's strongest grouping, yet the excellent push/pull sequencing of Drum's Not Dead creates a shivery cumulative effect that spans the entire length of the record: By its closing notes, you're likely to find yourself awed and emotionally spent. "Drum Gets a Glimpse" pairs a mournful Eno-esque melodic sense with cymbal washes, M83 guitar tones, crickets, and Andrew trading lines between the naive and melancholy falsetto of Mt. Heart Attack ("It seems like all our friends have gone"), and the deeper, more authoritative Drum ("You drove them out").
Later, there are a couple of abstract pieces-- fuzzier, looping canyon bliss-outs with left-channel acoustic guitar; a bit of swirling, Sister-era Sonic Youth shredding-- along with a pair of standouts. The first of these, "Drum and the Uncomfortable Can", is coated in reverb that amplifies the intensity of the cannibalistic double drumming: It's primal marching band music wrapped in guitar feedback and a howling voice singing about hiding a body. The second comes with the straightforward, closing ballad "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack", which resolves the album at its-- and the band's-- absolute peak. Like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps", its surprise sentimentality lends essential emotional weight, but does so with a dedicated restraint. Gentle guitar drifts accrue density alongside sighing vocals, warmed tom tom heartbeats, tiny instrumental accents (piano, tambourine, roughed-up strings), and Andrew's simple, sweet sentiments: "I won't run far, I can always be found"; "If you want me to stay, I will stay by your side."
For added value, Liars flesh things out with an accompanying DVD that presents three visual versions of the album: "Drum's Not Bread" by drummer Julian Gross, "The Helix Aspersa" by Andrew, and filmmaker Markus Wambsganss' "By Your Side". Due to its liberal use of live and studio footage (and farm animals, actually), Gross' best held my attention. More refined, Wambsganss creates effects with light and motion-- his three-channel video for "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack" is his portion's most compelling moment. Maintaining a stoic minimalism, Andrew fixates on a snail's ponderous adventures through Germany.
Of course, the music remains the greatest draw. Those who previously yearned for a career trajectory the band wisely ditched ought to listen to Drum and keep track of the epiphanies. In the coming weeks, its strengths will win converts, even among those who'd previously jumped ship. But my favorite detail of this feel-good story-- popular Brooklyn post-punk band falls out of favor by changing directions and ultimately produces an album that eclipses its debut-- is that Liars are still waltzing along on their own terms. This, their third LP, shows zero concessions to the criticisms they received from publications like Spin and Rolling Stone, who awarded They Were Wrong their lowest possible marks. Succeeding rather than regressing or retreating, Liars have had the last laugh: Drum's Not Dead is a majestic victory lap, and on all levels, a total fucking triumph.
-Brandon Stosuy, February 23, 2006
Review by Heather Phares
Continuing to explore the noise rock/prog rock fusion they pioneered with They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, Liars return with another concept album, Drum's Not Dead. The idea behind this album is even more abstract than They Were Wrong's conflation of witch trials and pagan rituals: Drum's Not Dead revolves around the yin-yang relationship of two forces in the creative process, personified as Mt. Heart Attack (who represents stress and self-doubt) and Drum (the embodiment of creative energy and productivity). While this is an intriguing concept, unfortunately the actual music doesn't always live up to it. Drum's Not Dead borrows pages from the urban-pagan, atmospherically noisy playbooks of both Black Dice and Animal Collective, although the album isn't as evocative as the former band's work nor as cuddly-weird as the latter's. Nothing here is nearly as abrasive, or immediate, as "There's Always Room on the Broom" -- throughout the album, Liars stay away from their comfort zone of dynamic noise-rock. This "quiet is the new loud" philosophy is admirable, but too often, Drum's Not Dead sounds oddly blurred and subdued. Interestingly enough for an album that uses mountains as a motif, its terrain is actually more like a valley, starting and ending with powerful tracks and dipping sharply in the middle. Drum's Not Dead begins with "Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack," which is not only the album's best track, but one of the finest things Liars have ever done. With dark, shimmering guitars that recall EVOL-era Sonic Youth and minimal but monumental drumming, it's full of beauty and brooding that is immediately exploded by the growling drones and heavy, tribal polythrhythms of "Let's Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack," which conjures up images of fiery, twirling drumsticks and sinister rites. It's tempting to say that Drum's Not Dead gets its point across in just the first two tracks, but that would ignore how well "To Hold You, Drum" mixes noise and whispery negative space and sets up the album's surprisingly sweet, hopeful resolution, "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack," which also ranks among the band's finest work. They Were Wrong, So We Drowned might have been too densely packed with ideas and sounds, but Drum's Not Dead errs in the opposite direction: too many tracks feel like variations on the album's themes that don't really go anywhere. Though there are many moments of primal energy (the eerie, hypnotic taunting of "Hold You Drum," "Drum and the Uncomfortable Can"'s climactic doom) and beauty (the flowing water and brooding melody on "The Wrong Coat for You Mt. Heart Attack," "A Visit from Drum"'s expansive guitars and emotional vulnerability), they never quite jell into something that goes beyond being momentarily impressive. Drum's Not Dead is undeniably interesting, but somehow unsatisfying; arguably the best thing about it is how it shows Liars are willing to keep pushing themselves into unknown creative territory, even if the results aren't always consistently great.
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