Liars have always been proponents of the idea of more – more bass, more fuzz, more weirdness. And now, tonight, they have more members, something that allows Angus Andrew to strut about the stage with even more shamanistic zeal than usual. And with twice as many stagehands behind him, Andrew really does tread every square inch of the platform, prancing and slapping his forehead with more than a little debt to Nick Cave’s live act. For a while, it’s pretty compelling. However, for all Andrew’s best efforts, it’s a good half hour before the band find their feet, ‘Clear Island’ being the number that ignites the crowd into the movement that the frontman is so desperate for. From then on the performance has its moments, but rarely amazes, although the three-song encore, starring only the original three Liars, is intimate, uninhibited, and hugely gripping. Unfortunately for them, their headline act is somewhat upstaged, at least in the RAWNOISE stakes, by the support, Factory Floor, who come across like mid-Holocaust My Bloody Valentine pickaxing Fuck Buttons, all turned up to an earbleeding 11. So bloody and confrontational is Factory Floor’s sonic barrage that Liars come across somewhat tepidly afterwards – and, disappointingly for a group like Liars, feeling slightly, well, less.

By Sam Walton

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Originally published in issue 18 (vol 3) of Loud And Quiet. June 2010