The chiming post-rock build-up and crescendo explosion might have been done to death, but then, so has pretty much everything else. What matters is how well it’s executed, and Young Liar’s second EP is of a remarkable standard.
There’s a delicacy about the opening track, ‘Stay Hungry, Stay Crazy’ that’s matched by a robustness that’s hard to define, although I suspect the depth of the production is a major contributor, alongside the fact the guitar sound is rich and warm. Analogue synths wash over the rest of the instruments, while a crackling hiss flows beneath. A dense rhythm guitar works a groove over the looping, chiming keys and half buries the percussion, and it works well, before the atmospheric ‘Sponsored Silence’ builds a stuttering groove before it soars high into the sky.
What distinguishes this instrumental combo from the majority isn’t just the way they effortlessly shift from one movement to the next while keeping the songs concise (only one of the four tracks here exceeds the five minute mark), but the way in which they favour grittier, rockier guitar sounds and bold noise elements. To my ears, they invite comparisons to And So I Watch You From Afar – and favourable ones at that.
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If ‘It’s Your IQ That’s in Danger’ begins with a jazz-tinged math-rock noodle, it soon veers into more brooding territories. Flickering microbeats start the final track, ‘Don’t Tell Marlow’, with a sparse nagging guitar motif soon buried beneath a deluge of crashing cymbals and soaring guitars, making for a compact epic that’s perfectly proportioned. Impressive.
Young Liar Online
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