Pertaining to their now-trademark genre fidget, it's a jittery affair. Not that it shows on opener The Exact Colour Of Doubt: a crystalline wash of river-like waves of electronic; the sort to smooth stones into suggestively glossy blobs flows gracefully atop processed handclaps and bewilderingly soothing groans courtesy of the unexampled Angus Andrew. It serves as an intriguing, if not wholly illustrative introduction to their latest wild swerve in what has become an irrevocably sui generis style. Octagon is rather more representative of what they're aiming for with this particular and particularly whimsical throw of the dice: reflecting an Egyptian gleam had umpteen helpless slaves been prematurely thrust into the construction of programmable synths in place of pyramids, it also accents for the first time in a few the inescapable Radiohead influence that runs throughout. Were there a fault with WIXIW thus far however (this intrinsic link aside perhaps) it'd be that you're left wishing for some form of unmistakably memorable hook to snare you round the lugholes, and that'll be the segueing No.1 Against The Rush which is, to all extensive and extensively efficient purposes, their most immediate recording since, well, ever. The sort of single to land an uncountable number of Last.fm most played's rather than No.1's per se, it's an irrepressibly elevating anthem for he or she who goes against the commuter grain; incisively surging into very lifeblood amid the jostle crossing Waterloo Bridge, or Sydney Harbour Bridge, or the Brooklyn Bridge, or any valid alternative worldwide. For worldwide recognition is what this band warrant.
Conversely, A Ring On Every Finger clatters along with the metronomic insistence of any daily grind: their omnipresent synths here gritted like teeth sharpened over decades of pent-up virulence, it's a return to the primitivity previously cited that's simultaneously both disconcertingly welcoming and reassuringly hostile. In keeping with WIXIW thus far, if it may be considered human in its spectrum of conflicting feeling then the savage cawing and sylvan sound effects of Ill Valley Prodigies seem distinctly incongruous with the rest of the work. Like an Opera House erected in the outback, it's an outré interlude that's perhaps too out there even for these barbarous, subjectively euphonious marauders. The theremin warbles and acute acoustics of His And Mine Sensations resurrect Radiohead aspects although it's from here on in that Liars hit a treacherous sort of stride: as Andrew distortedly blurts both "Bring me breakfast after dinner" and "Tie my up in a red ribbon/ Teach me how to be a person" on the wondrously chaotic Flood To Flood, both the uncultivated aesthetic previously alluded to and the purely deranged methodical oscillations of the back catalogue are condensed down into pulsations of impulsively diluvial distinction. Brats meanwhile comes across as Scarecrows On A Killer Slant made to jive at gunpoint to a relentless four-to-the-floor throb and madcap spasms of ideally abrasive MicroKorg.
However it's the eerily scant lurch of Who Is The Hunter that intimates a lasting intimacy with the haunting stalks of Sisterworld and a latent ability to breed relatively older with comparatively newer to spawn something more immediately spectacular than either. Liars will always invigorate with their every return, purely given that they function in spheres seemingly completely foreign to the human ear but it's never not worth clinging excruciatingly tightly onto the coattails – or kinked tresses – of Andrew et al. as they hop from globe to genre.
