Seattle Subsonic

The Liars Club EP – ‘Go Forth and Wrend Assunder’ (sic)

July 14th, 2008

I make it a point to listen to any new album or EP I buy, and sometimes the ones given to me, at least 10 times before expressing an opinion. The idea is to let the whole outweigh the individual experiential moments and to let a piece of music sink in.

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Some albums take you in a note or two (typically a band you already love), and others grow on you later like a strangely familiar de ja vu or a delayed epiphany. I’ve come to love albums that at first did not grab me. I’ve also loved records or bands and listened them a lot, then I get burned out and they fade away. You can’t always go with your first instinct. But I trust music more than I trust most people, and I give it a wide birth to work its magic.

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The Liars Club E.P. is all of 4 demos, but it’s got enough obvious strengths to rank in the 75th percentile of homespun bands. It’s good, better than many, but it’s not a totally cohesive work. Not that it should be. It’s a four song EP/demo for chrissakes. It’s a bit all over the place, and it covers a lot of ground in just four songs. And that, in a nutshell, is both the strength and weakness of the band, and the songs. There’s a bit of magic here, and there might be more in a live setting.

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To this listener’s ears, there’s elements of Pixies, Queens of the Stone Age, even a tinge of The Cult in their orchestration and delivery. But it’s not that they sound retro or obviously derivative–they just mix in some pieces and parts that echo the energy, delivery and/or aesthetic of those bands. They sound like a rock band. And they sound ready to prove it to you.

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That was my assessment after having only listened to their songs from their MySpace page, on laptop speakers and headphones no less. And I didn’t give their MySpace page a second glance. I’m not going to evaluate the merits of a band or their music based on the layout of their own self-designed web-presence. That may be the way of the average 14 year old these days, but I’m no 14 year old. So I listened my requisite minimum ten times, and then I called TLC’s(apologies) guitarist, Chris Craig, to get the story behind the band.

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Chris tells me singer, K.C., started the band several years ago, and that it’s been through a few iterations since. A full length was released, with various lineups performing throughout the northwest. Around 2006 Chris hooked up with K.C. and the two began writing new material. Alex joined soon after on Bass, and recently Steve took over on drums. Chris expects the band to spend a couple of months working out new material and to begin playing shows in late summer and the fall. The EP was recorded by Jules Hodgson of KMFDM, and produced by Martin Feveyear, of local fame and lately of Blue Scholars, Brandi Carlile and Presidents of the USA. It’s a solid, professional sounding effort, with just enough polish to make sure repeated listenings reveal the music and not the lack of a major label’s backing. Long story short, this is a band with a bit of history, a bit of new blood, and a new lease on life.

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So what about the music? “Wide Open Beaver” launches with a distinctly Nirvana-esque Bleach-era intro, but quickly shifts tempo and sounds more Fu Manchu than Kurt Cobain. “Wedgewood Hop” changes gears, exchanging riffs for mood and a rolling guitar line leading into the verse. This song shows the most variety of parts and some of the better hooks. You get the sense the band’s following probably sings along with this one the most. “Trust Fund” reminds me of Love-era Cult, but K.C.’s vocals are neither reminiscent, nor copping the vibe of Ian Astbury’s hippie headbanging. And that’s a good thing. “Born on a Friday” opens with keyboard and could be the illegitimate offspring of The Raconteurs and Kings of Leon, but in truth it sounds nothing like either of those bands. It just reminds me of them.

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As I said, these four songs cover a fair amount of ground. But none of them lack for the energy that should translate to an energetic live show. And that is, after all, what you ask of a local band when they’re getting it together and performing new music. You want something that catches your ear, maybe a performance worth watching, and hopefully a future to anticipate and participate in. These guys may yet cover all that ground too.

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I haven’t seen them before, let alone 10 times, and it’s only going to take one show to know whether the songs here translate well to a live performance. That’s a chance I’ll take, and I’ll tell you something else–their EP has been in my car’s disc changer for 2 weeks straight. And that hasn’t been the case for the Pixies, QOTSA, and definitely the Cult for quite a while.

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Photo by Aaron Morris