Andrew’s encounters with the darker side of his new home were not all positive, however. When a business he lived over was robbed, he became a witness to a murder as the store’s security guard was shot to death. It was a troubling event, one that engendered a strange mix of conflicted feelings in the singer. “I was there, basically, watching him die on the pavement while the police took off his clothes,” Andrew recalls. “It was a weird scenario.”
The violence and severity of this event greatly affected him, by making real the harsh struggle of urban living that he had never truly experienced in his own life. “So often it’s a glimpse on the news that someone died here, but to have it happen in your face is a real strong reminder of what’s going on in all these places that are forgotten about.” He confesses that amid the feelings of fear, uncertainty, and shock, he felt an unusual and troubling thrill.
“I was shocked at myself,” he says, “that I was so…giddy.” The act of violence served as an inspiration for the most arresting and emotional track on Sisterworld, “Scarecrows on a Killer Slant,” which storms with a cathartic wail. The raging guitar tears up sheets of sound that crash back and forth in righteous anger, culminating in a chorus that tips over into frenzied, vigilante madness. The song is an adrenaline shot, and the true emotion and passion that drive the song give the track added gravity.
The album isn’t all weighty social commentary. The lighthearted, satirical track “The Overachievers” is a snarky look at the mellow lifestyle of young, bio-cardriving Angelenos as they settle down and commune with nature. It’s also the first clearly narrative song in Liars’ repertoire, a slice-of-life short story that abandons the band’s abstract tendencies for an external perspective that Andrew compares to the work of Bret Easton Ellis. The chanted refrain of “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!” sounds vaudevillian — a big, broad, knowing grin to the crowd that’ll clap for more.
Apart from those two up-tempo tracks, the album is largely sedate and meditative. The penultimate track, “Goodnight Everything,” is the one that most impressed Andrew. “That song is a good example of a song that was really large and seemed difficult to put together at first,” he says, “but we were able to do it.” It’s a complicated, densely layered arrangement. Faint mechanical twitches flutter in the background before the band kicks in, augmented by a complement of strings and horns that help bring the song to a boil.
“Using the horns and strings is something that I’m proud we were able to do. We felt comfortable saying, ‘Okay, let’s take on that extra layer of sound.’ We’ve never been in that position before, where that kind of idea could come to fruition.” The track proves that there still are boundaries for Liars to push, horizons for it to reach and to make its own.
After nearly a decade of Liars’ existence, Andrew seems content with the band’s place in the world and what it has accomplished. But after a moment of consideration, he laughs and says that if he had the chance, he’d advise his younger self to be more mindful of money.
“For a long time,” he says, “we were just completely ignorant of how the business side of things worked. We refused any idea of cashing in on things, you know? But I think eventually you realize that if you want to keep doing this and get by, certain things have to give. It seemed like, at the start, we were intent on basically smashing everything that we could achieve. And that was fine and good, but it seems like if I look back on it now, maybe there were some opportunities that would’ve made life easier if we hadn’t been so, dare I say, arrogant.”
Despite the choices that Liars made in its past, they have led the band to this present, and for that, we can be thankful. It continues to be a potent and provocative band that defies and subverts expectations. It embraces the unexpected and seeks new methods of expression that keep listeners on their toes. Complacency is never an issue. Adventurousness is assured. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the turbulent rumble of Sisterworld.