The ever-challenging Liars have released several volumes of stubbornly abstruse thump/screech/howl, whose most curious aspect is how the hell it snuck its way into the literal-minded world we call “rock” music. Nothing the L.A.-based trio does is without a twist, so it figures that their new album, Mess (Mute), twists their sounds in the other direction, proffering a finger-snappable set of electronic pop tunesmithery loaded with accessible beats and melodies that you could sing in the shower. The interesting thing is how repeated listenings reveal Mess to be perhaps Liars' most head-squeezingly artful set of “pop tunes” yet. There are big, devious thrills in this Liars-only-type symmetry, where the music makes sense at first, then it doesn't, then it does. Liars are our premier aural-receptor reshapers.

Tue., May 27, 9 p.m., 2014
(Expired: 05/27/14)

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