Fins to Make Us More Fish-Like

Album review

The 2002 EP Fins to Make Us More Fish-Like is a perfect three-song distillation of Liars' early sound, when they were more angular no wave rockers than the performance art conceptualists they would become. Intact are the propulsive rhythm section, minimal guitar and toy keyboard melodies, agitprop vocalizing, and epic-length song titles. "Pillars Were Hollow and Filled with Candy, So We Tore Them Down" starts with a sustained guitar feedback screech worthy of Daniel Ash until a wounded keyboard limps in with a repeated two-note bleat and singer Angus Andrew obliquely chants an unintelligible mantra in a faux British accent. "Every Day Is a Child with Teeth" is a stomping shouted rant about androgyny ("Dress like a boy, be like a girl/Dress like a girl, be like a boy"). And the last track is a more raw version of "Grown Men Don't Fall in the River, Just Like That," the signature track from their debut full-length, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top. For the uninitiated, this EP is a great introduction to the band's demented world; for those already familiar, it provides an aural bridge to the gap in style that Liars leaped with their second full-length, They Were Wrong, So We Drowned.
© Brian Way /TiVo