OK, here’s my number one:
Liars – Sisterworld
I’ve been listening to New York-by-way-of-Australia indie-weirdos Liars nearly as long as their downstairs neighbours have! I bought a copy of their first album (“They Threw Us All In A Trench And Put A Monument On Top”) on import vinyl before it had a UK release, mainly because it was on Gern Blandsten records and had a nice cover and I got to see them on an early tour at the Freebutt in Brighton shortly after. Since then i’ve followed each subsequent move with eagerness, reverence and not a little bewilderment as they swung unevenly between the NY punk-funk of the first album to the weirdy-witchiness of the second “They Were Wrong, So We Drowned”), to the fragile beauty of “Drums Not Dead”, to last years more conventional “Liars”.
“Sisterworld” brings together pretty much every element of each of their previous albums and yet manages to sound complete and organised rather than the schizophrenic mess you might expect. It’s got upbeat-and-punky-but-weird-with-a-ridiculous-title; “Scarecrows On A Killer Slant” (in the player below), it’s got introspective dirges; “Proud Evolution” and it’s got conventional indie-rock top tunes; “The Overachievers”. In short, it’s the perfect amalgam of their innovative and eclectic career to date and it tops my end of year list easily.
I just listened to some Liars, scared myself, and had to stop!
I remember hearing the first record super loud in Rough Trade, Neal’s Yard – and daring to ask the staff who it was – boy that was a mistake….
it’s not as frightening if you think of parts of the tune soundtracking a speeded up keystone cops/batman style chase sequence – It’s my favorite bit and makes me smile like a loon.
(I do wonder if bands make music in the way that I hear it – or if the pills have stopped working properly after all these years)
Great ten – smashing write ups panther – will be looking out for some albums to catch up on.
i love Liars so much but I found this record a little uninspired. All the ingredients are there, but the songs just aren’t as good as their last 2 LPs in my opionion.
Hello Charlie, glad to meet a fellow fan,
i’ll concede that it sounds like a bit of a “best of” in parts, but the songs are most definitely there for me!
@Blimpy – they can definitely be scary, but they can also do heartwrenchingly beautiful tunes like this:
(I hate to say this, actually I don’t) I have this song on 7″!!! Love it!!
cheers Shane – if I had to pick one Shane-friendly album, it would definitely be the Teebs one, but i’m sure you’ve already heard it!
no panther – the beauty of this is I’ve only heard Best Coast all through out of your top 10 – some, a little like you describe, I got the first albums and just didn’t get around to picking any more up… when they are cheap enough I will.
(I get a lot more first albums to listen to/ or stuff we have missed – to judge if they would sell in a friends shop.. so Liars/ LCD soundsystem/ steve M would all be known about and how many copies to get)
the rest just wern’t on my radar – so the section with Teebs in (they all) made my check them out list.
If I like 6, it seems sensible to check out Burners, Teebs & Sun Araw & give Jonsi another go (think it was dodgy lyrics in English that put me off). Cheers, Panther.
Panthersan – thank you for this series of posts. It’s been a busy few weeks, so I haven’t had time to listen to much yet, but you are very very very good at writing about music. A pleasure to read every time.
thanks all for your kind interest.
I don’t expect everyone (or even anyone!!) to have too much affection for my choices, but i’ll certainly be checking out all I didn’t know on Blimpy’s list and anything that catches my ear in the Festive 3′s, so it’s nice to know others are checking out mine. cheers!
@Steen – very sweet of you to say so, but I just tell it how I feel it, simple as that!
I only got round to buying this a couple of months ago so it hasn’t had time to get embedded yet but so far, an improvement on the last one but not quite up there with “Drum’s Not Dead”. I’ll keep plugging away, though.