'WIXIW' by Liars (2012)

WIXIW is a somewhat creepy record. Meant in the best possible way. Best enjoyed through headphones, the album trickles into your consciousness, imparting sinister asides and anxious pleas & admissions. It's Liars' first foray into electronic music and it's impressive, a sense of fragility and doubt is very vividly conveyed.

As soon as the shimmeringly inviting opener 'The Exact Colour of Doubt' gears up, you're drawn into what this band, and more particularly this singular record, has to say. However once the grandeur of 'Doubt' fades, you're assailed by the percussive jabs & throbs and unmoved vocals of 'Octagon', a sinister (yet superbly atmospheric) track very much unlike its forerunner. This is typical of Liars, a band renowned for their refusal to surrender to generic trappings or to stick to any one musical style or tone.

However WIXIW does have a continuum of relative quietude (especially when compared to their more clamorous output prior to this work), and it perhaps more effectively than ever before, sustains a sense of unease, foreboding and trepidation. More accessible and pleasing in a traditional sense is 'No. 1 Against the Rush' which has a lovely buildup and more overt hooks, however, the next track- 'A Ring on Every Finger' extinguishes any sense of familiarity or agreeability with its jolty, hesitant-sounding beat and vocal assertions like "You're no better than you were." It's perhaps one of the record's finest tracks in all its cutup sighs, white noise buzz and overall moodiness. The albums flirts with psychedelia on the title track before once again returning to darker, self-doubting, more mysterious fare on 'Flood to Flood'.

That track abruptly segues into 'Who Is The Hunter' which sees versatile lead singer Angus Andrew adopt a higher pitch to justify "I only blew my gun to see which beasts still run", underlaid by whistles, synth, ticks and subtle claps. It's an evocative, pretty and reasonably understated track, which means that In trademark Liars fashion, the ensuing track is sure to be markedly different. And it is- after a slew of subtler, textural, mood pieces, WIXIW poleaxes you with 'Brats', a high-energy, pulsating rave track wildly different from the rest of the record. It's also highly enjoyable, in it's standing as the clearcut black sheep of WIXIW- a thundering romp with a dance bent.

The comedown from the penultimate track is the relaxing 'Annual Moon Words', which in its acoustic strums and slowed vocals, has a sort of pacifying effect following the pulse-pounding 'Brats'. "I'm on my way down", indeed. WIXIW is essential listening, yet will likely fly under the radar. The album has been compared to the Radiohead masterpiece 'Kid A', and whilst sonic similarities are detectable, WIXIW is more introspective, and everyday in terms of the dilemmas it confronts, whilst Kid A tackled broader themes and issues. WIXIW comes highly, highly recommended, a fascinating, nervy and delicate listen that'll reward listeners with each and every play.

9.1 

Jacob Dunstan

'Closer' by Joy Division (1979)

'Forerunner to the goth rock genre is an undisputed masterpiece'

Closer is an album whose beauty and complexity is difficult to do justice in words. It’s a transcendent experience and will, for better or worse, have a momentous impact on the listener. Each and every track carries with it magnificent power, an unrivalled energy in terms of its lyrical content and musicianship. Whilst Joy Division’s extraordinary debut album Unknown Pleasures had a raw, spare and stark quality to it, it also bore a semblance of constancy, with each track not too dramatically different to the one that preceded it.  Closer, whilst equally mysterious, intriguing and laden with gloomy lyrics, is an album of jarring tonal and auditory shifts. From the machine-like drum pattern and delicate vocals of outstanding opener Atrocity Exhibition to the heavy, ear-splitting riffage and risible vocal shouts of Colony; from the funereal, sepulchral lowness of the glorious The Eternal to the stop-start dynamics of the increasingly desperate, despairing Twenty Four Hours, Closer is a marvellously challenging listen.

   

Whilst the casual listener not particularly well-versed in Joy Division’s oeuvre might be initially perturbed or take a while warming to the viscous layer of gloom that Closer is coated in, the album should be persevered with, must be persevered with even. Closer is dark and Joy Division aficionados can all concur that the record contains the band’s darkest work. However, what truly sets Joy Division apart and where the band’s inarguable genius shines through at its greatest, is the way they can meld melodic, occasionally light music with unnerving and often depressing lyrics, and make it work beautifully. The track Isolation attests to this, as despite its words (which serve as an insight into Curtis’ scarily insecure wellbeing at the time), the track remains catchy and almost danceable. It also serves as somewhat of a harbinger to the more synth-pop oriented music Joy Division’s members would produce post Curtis’ death as New Order. The way the band can so beautifully counterbalance the darkness with a radio-friendly musical vibe is evidenced perhaps at its best in the immortal classic Love Will Tear Us Apart (which, like Closer, was released after Curtis’ death).

Whatever one’s taste, Closer is a must-listen. It’s an album brimming with sorrow and pain, and remains not only the quintessential post punk record, but a record that should be heard by all and sundry, irrespective of musical predisposition. While impressive modern acts such as Interpol and The Horrors have partially recaptured the sonic uniqueness of this marvellous band, Joy Division will forever remain the benchmark for profound, endlessly moving gothic rock.

10.0

Jacob Dunstan

The distinctive drum-beat and haunting synth make for a brilliant marriage with Curtis' eerie, hushed vocals in the atmospheric Heart and Soul: