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The Tenebrous Liar have just finished recording their
follow up to Jackknifed And Slaughtered, again produced
and mixed by Richard Warren, due for release Winter
2010 -2011.
Friday 3rd September
The Tenebrous Liar
St Moritz Club
159 Wardour Street London W1F 8WH
9PM
Saturday 4th September
The Tenebrous Liar
Belgrade Theatre
Coventry
Jackknifed
& Slaughtered Available as a Limited Edition containing
the album on both vinyl and CD. As well as fold out lyric
sheet and photos. Jackknifed And Slaughtered was mixed
and produced by Richard Warren (Echoboy, Soulsavers)
at The Cedars Nottingham where Rich worked with Spiritualized
on their Songs in A and E.
Also available as a download from itunes etc.
‘Tenebrous Liar’s finest hour. “Suffer You”
& “No Guiding Light” are fine grunge-pop, borne
by basslines borrowed from Joy Division, while the epic title
track builds adroitly from Birthday Party blues into a thing
of thunderous ferocity’
****UNCUT
Jackknifed
& Slaughtered is a record of intense brooding, marked
by the sullen rhythm of Brendan Casey and Tom Glendining.
Steve Gullick's vocal blends Nick Cave with Mark Lanegan,
exuding a sense of loss, melancholia but equally defiant.
The seething 'Suffer You' sets the tone of 'Jackknifed.....'
at once - this is a document of the cursed, wretched souls,
condemned to rock 'n' roll under pure white heat.
ROCK A ROLLA
The latter part of the Jackknifed brings the influences of
early Cat Power, Palace and post-rock to the fore, without
ever sounding particularly like anyone other than The Tenebrous
Liar; Freedom Reign has to be one of the more vicious songs
of recent years, compelling in it’s bitterness. Is This
How It Ends? (the answer being “almost”, there’s
a wonderful hidden song after it) leaves one gasping for air,
and more.
ARTROCKER
Listening to this album cannot be called a comfortable experience.
But then the truth never is… is it? However, there’s
much here to admire; that I find totally compelling; and while
I hate drawing comparisons with other acts, on this occasion
I feel I am justified. Imagine Nirvana at its most angst-ridden,
jamming a demo. Imagine instrumental band the Dirty Three
falling out of love, angry and obnoxious, while maintaining
their melodic roots. Imagine the Tindersticks turning up the
recording volume and traveling a much rockier path. This band
and album are all this and more.
SHAKENSTIR
JACKKNIFED & SLAUGHTERED PRESS RELEASE BY IAN JOHNSTON
The Tenebrous Liar are Steve Gullick - vocals & guitar,
Tony Ash - guitar, Brendan Casey - bass and Tom Glendining
- drums, the Richard Warren produced album is the line-ups
first together. This is a very different incarnation of the
band who have been releasing records since 2006, the last
being 2008's critically acclaimed Tenebrous Liar's Last Stand
which, like the newoffering, was released by the staunchly
independent label TV Records.
'Jackknifed & Slaughtered' sees The Tenebrous Liar dynamically
evince their full potential both as songwriters and as an
incredibly powerful musical force, they are now clearly more
than capable of producing emotionally charged, direct, structured
and melodious songs, delivered straight from the
heart and gut. From the vivid rancour of ‘Suffer You’,
through the subterranean soul searching within ‘No Guiding
Light’, ‘Nothing Is Plenty’ and ‘Cut Down
Your Love’, the blank generation post sense response
of ‘Nothing To Say’, the dramatic howl of desire
and plea for reconciliation which ignites the title track,
the yearning ‘No Relief’ to the finality of ‘Is
This How It Ends?'.
'Jackknifed & Slaughtered' is an album of two distinct
halves, side one devised to hook the listener with up-tempo
deliberately catchy pop songs, side two has darker leanings,
more contemplative, brooding and subdued. “The way these
songs developed is definitely a consequence of the addition
of our new drummer, Tom.” opines lyricist and internationally
renowned music photographer Steve Gullick, considering the
thrilling musical evolution of the band. “He’s just
facilitated my musical dreams and made us all much better
musicians, he and Bren have become this amazing rhythm section.”
'Jackknifed & Slaughtered' is a thoroughly exhilarating
and immediate experience, the bands utter commitment to creating
a stirring soundscape backdrop to Gullick’s confessional
words of experience is never in doubt. Underpinned by the
rock solid rhythmic foundation provided by Glendining’s
drums and Casey’s bass, Ash’s innovative guitar
inflames The Tenebrous Liar tunes while Gullick’s idiosyncratic
guitar and vocals bring poignant emotional clout to the album.
Gullick and the band have intuitively fashioned their own
compelling compositions and utterly distinctive sound "the
songs were well rehearsed and played extensively live before
we went into the studio", Gullick also acknowledges producer
Richard Warren’s contribution to the successful realization
of the group’s clamourous blast on 'Jackknifed &
Slaughtered', working in the same isolated Nottingham studio
where Rich worked with Spiritualized on their 'Songs in A
and E album': “Rich breathes music, just knows how we
need to sound, his only brief was, ‘We just want to play
the songs live and we want you to record them, we have four
days.”
The Tenebrous Liar are not afraid to tell uncomfortable truths
on Jackknifed & Slaughtered and they deserve your immediate
attention. The band will be touring in support of 'Jackknifed
& Slaughtered' and you are strongly advised to catch one
of Their renowned incendiary performances. The Tenebrous Liar
take no quarter. Freedom will reign……
MORE
REVIEWS
“Imagine Lift To Experience stuck in the eternal damnation
their songs tried to escape from, but with a result more ashcan
reality than spiritually vivid.”
Drowned in Sound
"moody and intense, occasionally terrifyingly primal,
country-blues soundscapings".
Time Out
“If Leonard Cohen brings a smile to your face and you
are partial to a bit of low-fi then Tenebrous Liar is the
band for you.”
The Sun
“brooding songs, fusing Cohen, Earth and the more dissonant
aspects of Queens of the Stone Age and, whisper it, Nirvana
- a raging slab of aural murk that brings to mind the same
unease a Halloween jaunt round an abandoned asylum might.
Rock – A - Rolla
“their music is dark, demented, and deliberate, characterized
by murky, lo-fi, feedback-drenched guitars and sludgy rhythms
that heave like a spluttering locomotive – gloom-laiden,
world-weary vocals, conjuring up hints of Codeine, Flipper,
and Pavement.”
The Big Takeover USA
“In
an intimate Soho club, Tenebrous Liar make a stand for mavericks
everywhere. The rotating members, centred around mouthpiece
Steve Gullick, tailor their exquisite avant-garde Americana
to suit the occasion, with a living music that fills every
corner of the room”
NME
"Musically their second album Last Stand recalls Shellac,
Liars and Nirvana at their most bloody-minded and amusical."
The Quietus
"Dinosaur Jr meets Nirvana's In Utero – yep, it's
not pretty and it sure ain't going to win any Brit awards,
but its macabre melancholy is stunningly executed, complete
with jagged Velvet Underground guitar."
Selby Times
"Tenebrous Liar’s Last Stand is at it’s best
during the slowest moments, when the guitars are drawn out
in all their dark, jagged, droning, menacing glory; the vocals
almost playing second fiddle, but reinforcing the darkness
and the feeling of vast emptiness and unknowns that the provocative
artwork of an inky skyline and menacing forest first invokes."
Subba Culture
"From the hyperactive two-short-plank riffing of early
Nirvana, to Dinosaur Jr’s laconic fuzz-splurges, to Mudhoney’s
sack-o-bricks lurches and Tad and The Melvins’ ear sludge,
the album ‘Tenebrous Liar’s Last Stand’, from
his band Tenebrous Liar, is a veritable inventory of that
era in American underground music. And not just that, it’s
catalogued damn well and in such a way that they can probably
count Nick Cave’s Grinderman and whatever band Mark Lanegan
is involved in this week as current peers."
Crud Magazine
"It comes across as such an organic album. Whilst it
won’t be charging up the charts any time soon, this is
a record which, given time, will grow in both sound and stature.
And there just aren’t enough of those around these days."
isthismusic.com
"The band's second album, Last Stand, at times recalls
the miserable post-punk of Joy Division and occasionally the
lo-fi indie of Slint's brilliant Spiderland."
The Skinny
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