Liars: "The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack"

In 2004 the Liars were turned away from the door like a cat with a bird in its mouth. They Were Wrong So We Drowned was the rotting kill, sure, but if there’s fault to be assigned, it’s that critics were overcompensating for expectations after the revelatory They Threw Us All in the Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top. If a constant remains, it’s that Drum’s Not Dead will likely be judged in the same harsh light.

However, this first single indicates that the new album just might be a relatively straightforward affair, lending itself less to polemics than even their debut did. “Beautiful” and “nice” are adjectives rarely used to describe this caustic band; “The Other Side” is both. Faraway guitars, broken pianos and cyclical chants aren’t new to the Liars, but subdued acceptance and a tempo this drowsy are. The central theme of the song, “I won’t run far / I can always be found,” borders on defeatism, and, at a comparatively meager 4:43 (including drawn-out intro), the song doesn’t stray far from where it starts. It’s a hushed confession and an important step for these guys, even if there are bands that do this sort of thing better.

It’d be difficult for the Liars to make musical statements much louder than they already have. “The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack” is the band effectively putting the ball back in the critic’s court.