year after their critically acclaimed release They Threw us all in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top , the Liars return with this EP. With the leftfield antics of their debut, one has to wonder what they will offer us next. Will they lose the energy and go experimental-drone? Will they change their style from crazy post-punk to avant-sound collage? The group has certainly positioned themselves as entirely unpredictable- we don’t know where they are going, but we’re way too interested to look away.


“We Got Cold, Coughed and Forgot Things” begins in an upbeat fashion. Psychotic disco drums and vivacious octave bass lines introduce us to the Liars new mania. As we are gathering our wits, Aaron Hemphill’s guitar crunches in, slashing our wrists with razor blade resolve and punching us in the head with its clenched fists. The bands rhythm has never been tighter, the groove is held down while the guitar freaks out and the vocals let loose on our senses.


The Liars’ formula works best only when you aren’t paying much attention to what they are trying to say. The attractive part of the vocal delivery is the tone, the snotty sneer with which nearly every line is delivered. “I didn’t care/I always wanted to touch a bear” singer Angus Andrew lets spill during a particularly poor spoken section in track two, “You Know I Hate Stupid Phones”. Fortunately, the track redeems itself seconds later with some wonderful drum reverb magic.


“Every Three Hours With a Ducks Fan” works in a similar way, with ferocious guitar harmonics directing the proceedings. ‘Feeling close to you just makes me desperate’, Angus squeals, his voice distorted. The drums shift to a hazy shuffle for a particularly disorienting instant before the rest of the band joins in the groove. Of the three songs on this release, this one is the most consistently danceable.


Missing from this release is the eclectic spirit that made They Threw us all in a Trench... so amusing. Rather than the loops, the scratching and the interesting samples, we just get the energy. Not that energy by itself is boring, but we’ve got a taste of the varied instrumental textures and parts of this release seem like a step down from their earlier LP. Where’s this record’s typewriter?


Ultimately, We No Longer Knew Who We Were is an extension of the hyperactive mania we’ve come to expect from the Liars.