Live reviews should be straight forward to write cause there’s a guaranteed narrative. A beginning, (support) middle (headliners) and an end, or encore. The Blood Brothers, however, are something of a story in themselves. Unfortunately, as a musical fairy tale, their set is a verbatim sonic rendition of the Emperor’s New Clothes. For some this band are rewriting punk, giving it melancholic reflexivity and freeing it to almost schizophrenically constant metamorphosis. Frankly I’ve heard it done, and I’ve heard it done better. Admittedly the Rescue Rooms (not famed for it’s bell like sound quality) may not be doing TBB any favours but watching these 5 skinny Americans in tight fitted t-shirts squarking like helium-gulping chipmunks and throwing themselves about like reformation zealots in the presence of fire and brimstone for me was pretty tiresome. The fact it all comes with a volume switch just rankles, but everyone around me fuckin’ loves it. They’re all shaking themselves like maracas – except for the guy down the front with the Motorhead tattoos, he’s just punching people - but are my ears functioning on the wrong frequency? Well whatever floats your boat I guess.
Liars float my boat.
In a reaction to the almost the instantaneous labelling which came with their last album (in frontman Angus Andrew’s own words the speed of Liars entry into the ‘Post-Punk Brooklyn Art-Dance pigeonhole’ was shocking) has come some fundamental reinvention. Tonight Liars air only material from the “They Were Wrong So We Drowned” LP which marked a departure from their previous releases in approach and outcome; How the witch trials, harrowing and Devil’s Sabbath subject matter were going to translate from spooky vinyl to performance was always going to an interesting proposition.
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Surprisingly, a concept album and two new band mates later, Andrew and his colleagues have somehow escaped the clutches of ubiquitous po-faced navel gazing and predictability. Case in point, Andrew takes the stage with a tigger tail (which he swings) stitched to the bottom of his jacket. The drummer, a rhythm section of one, is sporting a sequined mini-skirt, tight and low cut pink top and near handlebar moustache. Guitarist and sometime percussionist Aaron Hemphill, is positively demure in comparison, but clearly loving every minute. Liars are having F.U.N. fun.
Sheets of processed sound grind away under and over the mechanically repetitive drumming. Andrew’s imposing 6ft frame strikes animal poses and moves about the stage with child-like delight. His vocals deliver the aural spectacle of the moon lit forest with glee. It’s altogether uncanny in the Freudian sense. ‘We Fenced Other Gardens With The Bones of Our Own’ is superb, with the ritualistic and synthetic rhythms putting the music into the realms of shamanistic techno. Pure frequency sounds abound, and by the time Liars hit their encore – having never left the stage – the euphoria of undulating atmospheric white noise is turning into an unsteady come down. Admittedly Liars reject many of the hooks an audience demand – defined structure and singalong choruses, but they stalk the fine line between eccentricity, madness and genius with panache.
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