Baltimore's
Liars Academy return, three years after their initial release, with a slightly re-jiggered lineup and a wholly modified sound that branches out from the
post-hardcore emo of 2001's
No News Is Good News into an unfortunate blend of
alternative rock radio cliches. The problem isn't that
Liars Academy want to change their sound -- lots of good bands have plenty of perfectly understandable reasons for doing that -- it's that they can't seem to decide what they want to change their sound to. As a result,
Demons has an unsavory off-the-rack quality; it's like every song has the band posing indecisively in front of the studio's mirror, trying to decide whether the
Rapture-style
dance-
punk of
"The Accountant" or the faceless
guitar rock of
"Washing Machine" looks better on them. The nadir is the absolutely awful
"People Are Games," which overworks a bad metaphor that sounds like something a stoned
Xbox addict would ponder at three in the morning after an all-night
Halo marathon. Overall,
Demons is pretty much a complete wash. ~ Stewart Mason
