IN WHICH WE GO ALL SMART SHOPPER ON YOUR ASS

You are going to want to buy the new Liars album. I mean, actually purchase it. It comes with a DVD, and unless some hardcore noise fan rips it to a torrent (which I guess isn't that far fetched), you'll have to pay to see the 36 or so videos on it. Plus the cover has some wicked tribal/Van Halen shit going on. Frontman Angus Andrew discusses said DVD in the Pitchfork interview with Liars.

Angus: Yeah, at least one video for every song, basically, is the idea. It's a formula we've been following in the band, which is try to pick up things you're not familiar with and make stuff with them. And usually the results are more interesting than what you would do with things you're familiar with. So this idea of editing and shooting video is just a brand new medium. It's the fun of making stuff and seeing what can happen when you don't really know what you're doing. I think for us it's ended up being an important part as well with all the whining about no one buying records. I feel like it's important for artists to take on that responsibility and invest more in their records. It's not like you can just record 12 songs and put a slip of paper in there, and that's it. Why would anyone want to buy that? So what can we do to make this whole thing more interesting? It needs a revolution almost in the way that we consume the album. This is our first attempt to see what we can do about that.

The interview has more about the videos, as well as the process of making Drum's Not Dead in the fabled, multi-chambered, abandoned German studio. It has really helped the listening process to learn more about where the album and the band are coming from. Just ignore the parts where Schreiber is all, "LOOK AT ME I'm talking with LIARS like they KNOW ME."

Anyways here's my tip. Insound is having a sale on pre-orders, a sale on Pitchfork "Best New Music", and 99 cent shipping for all of March. Which means - since we already established that you want to own the album - that you should pre-order the album at Insound. I mean, you don't HAVE to do anything. I'm just saying it's a good idea.



Liars are one of very few bands today I feel that I can count on to be consistently inconsistent, to actually surprise their audience with each release, to do their best to innovate. When They Were Wrong, So We Drowned came out, I was definitely taken aback by the shift from dance-punk to gloom and doom/experimental/noise punk music, although I can't say I was surprised that they transformed themselves so drastically. Liars have always delighted in tearing down expectations.

It took seeing the band perform that album live for me to really get into it, and while I still like a lot of the songs from it, I agree with Angus's sentiment in the interview that the production on that album doesn't appropriately convey the songs. Well, Drum's Not Dead makes that album seem extremely accessible in comparison. But it's a fucking great head trip. I can't wait to see them on tour again.

Fuck I'm rambling. Listen to a few tracks at their MySpace page, or just go for their amusing personification of the word "Drum". You can also see a clip of the band performing at Trash in London.