Liars - Sisterworld

(Mute)

LA’s art-rock contortionists Liars are not short of admirers: Thom Yorke, Devendra Banhart and Suicide’s Alan Vega have all reconstructed songs from Sisterworld, the avant-garde trio’s fifth long-player. Yet Liars’ caliginous renditions eclipse its star-studded bonus CD.

Riddled with baleful electronica, paranoid guitars and critical rhythms, Sisterworld inhabits a realm of bedraggled Nick Cave altercations (‘Scissor’), fucked-up surfer pop (‘The Overachievers’), vindictive rock (‘Scarecrows on a Killer Slant’) and intransigent anthems (‘Proud Evolution’).

There is beauty too. If Sisterworld is a troubling ode to the end times, then radiant swansong, ‘Too Much, Too Much’ guides us quietly toward the light.