With ever more disturbing and beautifully bizarre artwork from Pierre Englebrecht we now have a caged and shackled brain, white sheets and rose petals, make of that what you will, for now though let’s take a gander at the new single from my friends Amongst Liars. Still hammering away down on the south coast- ahem- their noises causing glorious ripples across the nation, they urge us to wake up and take notice of what is happening around us. I’ve said it many times in my reviews, there is so much that we have suffered, I reckon even a hundred years of songwriting wouldn’t cover the entire scenario of insanity.
I love that punky, grungy chorus of ‘as the violence drags me through, I’m at peace with you’ it reminds me of my friends Y!kes who produce a similar sound in their work. The seriousness of the song is captured in the quality arrangement, you go from the almost headmistress like strict verse, and at 0.48 you get that change in the sound, that leads into a chorus you never thought would be lurking around the corner. Ian George is on a mission with his mic, suitably backed up by Ross Towner – bass, Adam Oarton – drums, Leo Burdett on guitar, and newcomer James Brum on keyboards, don’t let their efforts be in vain, they might just save your life. The addition of synths is quite clever, it’s nothing new I understand that, but I feel they bring a softer tone, underneath all that mad twanging, it gives you the hand to hold. For a band that were created during the past few years of treachery, it is that very cold and unforgiving time that has given us quite a determined and unabashed skillset yet they are an extremely generous and uplifting band of brothers, bonded by desolation, chaos, abandonment and deceit, the stuff of all our nightmares brought together by Amongst Liars.
With a tour on the cards in September, you will find yourself down amongst the dead men and the liars, there’s a theory to be tested here I think, (see what I did there, clever eh!)
It’s time to stand up my friends, refuse to take the blame, name, and shame these contemptuous buckets of hideousness parading as our leaders. The eagerly anticipated second album is also on its way, possibly even angrier than the first, in a world that is neither yours nor mine, forever drawing the battle lines, while our politicians are corrupt by design.
Azra Pathan
Amongst Liars – The Shameful out 31st August 2023