Liars vs. Aa
Am I the only person who doesn’t love the new self-titled album from Liars? I loved their previous three albums to death, but Liars just leaves me cold. I want to like it. I can see what they’re trying to accomplish. But I just don’t find it a compelling listen. I’ll give it more listens, of course. But right now, my favorite Liars album of 2007 was done by Aa.
Many years ago, I had a friend who was a die-hard Weezer fan. Then The Green Album came out. He hated it. So he looked around and found Rock and Roll Part Three by a band called Ozma that sounded exactly like what you would expect the follow-up to Pinkerton to sound like.
Aa’s gAame is a lot closer to a logical next step following Liars’ Drum’s Not Dead than Liars is. Now, Ozma sounded exactly like Weezer. Aa is clearly influenced by Liars, but does a lot of things differently. For one, they’re also heavily influenced by Boredoms. They also use tons of synthesizers and their vocals are punk rock shouting that you’d hear at Soophie Nun Squad show rather than the weird crooning thing that Angus of Liars does. But it does have the key component of what made Drum’s Not Dead such a compelling listen: the interplay of droning ambience and earth crushing drum madness. It’s a fun lively listen that sounds like what it is: punk rock kids who done got real weird and started making art-rock. Also, it comes with a rad DVD. Drum’s Not Dead? Rad DVD. Liars? No rad DVD. You can see what I’m trying to say here.
Here’s two cuts from gAame that work well as stand alone tracks. Most of the tracks on the album are continuously mixed, as it’s a very album-y album. So if you dig these jams, I highly recommend seeking out the whole thing.
Aa - Manshake
Aa - Thirteen
If you want to hear anything of Liars, tracks are all over that internet.
