Uncomfortable, Menacing, Beautiful.
Having heard of and read nothing but good things about Liars, I was looking forward to ‘We Fenced Other Gardens With Bones Of Our Own’ (helpfully reduced to ‘W.F.O.G.W.T.B.O.O.O.’ on the side of the CD case.) This song comes from the New York three-piece’s second album, ‘They Were Wrong, So We Drowned’, which is a bizarre conceptual journey based on sixteenth century witch hunts. Bearing this in mind, the more discernible lyrics to ‘W.F.O.G.W.T.B.O.O.O.’ suddenly make a little more sense; ‘..take your cauldron, and get down..’.
The sticker on the front of the CD single tells me that this is a ‘6 track EP’. Hesitant as I am to disbelieve anything printed on a sticker, it isn’t. In reality, this is a three track single, which, if you put into your computer, has a video for all three songs.
The song begins with two angry rumblings, each ending on a tinny cymbal. You can imagine the beginning of this track as two sorry exclamation marks, saying ‘Look what you’ve done.. This has happened, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ And indeed, on the video (directed of Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs fame), they are used to punctuate images of the band apparently mutilated and bleeding in the snow. These rumbling drum rolls then continue appear at the end of every repetition of the industrial-sounding drumbeat that becomes the basis of the song. A droning bass sound flows behind the prominent percussion and creates an angry, yet mellow, sadness that will progress throughout the song. Wailing falsetto vocals, with plenty of echo, slide in on top, which are reminiscent of screaming, without actually being screaming. The layers build up, creating an increasingly foreboding soundscape, now that we have multitracked voices with contrapuntal texture. The climax comes in the form of silence revealing a low, menacing chant followed by real screams of terror, before the percussion and the rest of the sound returns and drags you to the end of the song feeling somewhat empty and broken. What was it you just experienced here?
If only they had thought more about the b-sides, this single could have been so much better. The second track is, apparently, a cover of ‘Sexboy’ by Germs. Now, I feel as if I must be missing something here, as this track is just uncomfortable noise. Not discomfortingly arranged sound, like the first piece, but noise. A lot of snare drum, some shouting and everything distorted. Everything. After ‘W.F.O.G.W.T.B.O.O.O.’, this is dire.
Not a band for concise names, the third song is named ‘The Fountain And It Monologue’. It begins calmly floating above a deep sea of sounds at night time. There are hints at percussion, bells twinkling like stars above the sea, the whole piece drifting along on various levels of feedback and soft bass. This is music for late at night, when you’re tired and most probably intoxicated, as it provides a gentle massage of noise to the brain. A sense of pulse becomes apparent after a couple of minutes, when the bells desist and a more rhythmic percussion sound takes over, leading the piece to its close. The piece ends at around four minutes and leaves you wondering whether it ever even happened at all.
Anyone familiar with the sounds of Sonic Youth will be in for a treat with ‘We Fenced Other Gardens With The Bones Of Our Own’. Tracks one and three are wonderful in an uneasy-listening experimental way - your average punk-rock fan will not enjoy himself here. ‘Sexboy’ is an unnecessary track, if it were replaced with a piece of similar calibre to tracks one and three, it would have impressed me further. The videos are a bonus, but do not warrant the claims that this is a six track EP.