Homosexual artwork and unconventional approaches aren't enough to get me badmouthing the newest from Liars. Plenty of complaints have been unfairly leveled upon this now awkward trio, most of them having to do with the fact that the music sounds intentionally difficult and unfocused. Drum's Not Dead is devoid of shock tactics, however, and the music is a shimmering, chaotic, and surprisingly pretty mess.
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Aaron Hemphill, Angus Andrew, and Julian Gross would like to have me believe that there's some concept buried in the terminology "drum" and "Mt. Heart Attack," but since there aren't any lyrics in the booklet and it's hard to understand what the hell anyone's saying anywhere on the record, I'm just going to ignore that and get straight to the heart of why I enjoy this record. The controversial cover art for their single, "It Fit When I Was a Kid," brought more bad vibes for the band than anything else. To be fair, the artwork is gratuitous and completely unrelated to the music found inside; it isn't difficult to see why some felt that Liars were being ridiculous for the sake of the attention that shock brings. More difficult than the cover art, however, was the music inside. "It Fit When I Was a Kid" is comparable to a They Were Wrong, So We Drowned track gone on a diet. In place ofthe brooding, claustrophobic sounds is nothing but acoustic drumtracks, shimmering guitar, and chanted vocals. An organ pops upsomewhere in the middle of the song, sounding like it belongs to thebeginning of another song and adds to the confusion, creating adistance between the music and the listener instead of invitingeveryone inside. On first listen, it's almost like Liars live andacoustic, but with that twisted and minimal edge that made their lastalbum appealing to some, like me, and absolutely repulsive to others.
"Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack!" opens the new album with a hovering guitar, gliding back and forth in the background as floor toms and snares pound and snap over it. Shortly vocals enter the mix and a surprisingly laid back presence takes hold of the track. The rhythm section picks up some pace, but the lift and sustain of the guitar keeps everything under check, preventing the track from escalating. Instead of becoming a boring stasis, the track takes on a nearly meditative air, but only long enough for the screams on "Lets Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack" to interrupt the calm and send the album into a propulsive and hypnotic dance. The chanted vocals take on a whole new attitude as this track snakes its way through rolling floor toms and horn-like synthetic moans. They slip into the arrangement of the song and become part of its energy instead of wondering around above the rest of the music. For the next forty minutes, Liars gravitate between jarring juxtapositions and alluring exotica. The music never reaches the fevered pitch it did on They Were Wrong...; the band has opted to keep things tightly controlled, instead. The result is a series of beautifully restrained, tribal tunes that flicker on and off with falsetto vocals and the pounding of heated rhythms. When "It Fit When I Was a Kid" begins, the song makes far more since than it did by itself. Without the perverse art associated with it previously, the song sounds attractive, darkly sexual, and it is not without hints of violence. Somewhere beneath the surface of that pounding bass and church organ is a spotted landscape of dying survivors and choked foliage. The lamenting vocals add an element of despair to the track and emphasize the fact that the Liars must've thought carefully about recording this album. Everything moves together, as part of a machine, as a real collection of songs meant to be considered next to each other. It's no wonder the song fails as a single, it has nothing surrounding it with which to hold it up.
Other songs exert varying degrees of musicality, some of them being harshly dissonant and nearly tuneless, others sounding like jazz slowed down and shaved of all its excesses. "The Wrong Coat For You Mt. Heart Attack" features a buzzing synthetic sound of some sort, being most appropriately compared to a French horn or a modified trombone of some kind. As the song slowly dissolves, I can't help but feel a weight in my stomach, dragging me down slowly and turning my mind inside out. It's a powerful song because it is so carefully arranged and almost numbingly repetitive. The repetition, however, never wears thin except for a few brief moments where the band attempt to construct a motionless wall of sound and instead find themselves stumped and unable to provide the necessary ingredients for such an effect.
Drum's Not Dead is a beautiful collection of songs, sounds, movements, ideas, call them whatever you want. The band continue to push themselves on this record, though not quite as hard as they did between their previous two albums. Instead of relying on volume and grating noise, however, the band relies on subtle atmospheric touches and gentle shifts in mood and timbre. The final song, "Another Side of Mt. Heart Attack" is perhaps the most nakedly beautiful thing the band has written. Amid an almost entirely nocturnal record, it's a bright, hot fire that casts the rest of an album in an entirely different light. As each song oscillates between undeniably tense tremors and unguarded, liberating moments, there is a sense that maybe there is some concept breathing beneath the music. I've read what that concept is and, after enough listens, its almost intuitively evident in the music; no need for lyrical guidance. Drum's Not Dead is a record that will teach its listeners how to hear it, but it will take time and patience to find the rewards hidden. I know that a lot of people say that about records that simply aren't that good, but in this case its true. This is the best thing Liars have recorded and one of the more exciting albums I've heard this year.
On top of that, the band has provided a DVD with the album that features a video for every song. The music for each track is exactly the same as on the record, but there are multiple videos for each song. The videos vary from humorously interesting, to bland, to absolutely confusing. It doesn't seem like any of the videos bare any relation to any of the tracks. It's an interesting attempt at adding something new to the experience of hearing a record, but there isn't enough going on to keep me fixed to the television while its on. I find my mind wanders a bit too much as some of the videos simply creep by. The band didn't need to include this, anyhow. The record is more than enough to keep me coming back.
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