The rest of the album is quite good too, but almost anything would be anticlimactic after the way the first 3 songs flow and build, a masterclass in dynamic tension and release. I can't suggest any stronger wake-up treatment ... coffee pales....
But honestly just a Great band and a great man. the albums aren't anywhere near as good as the show david Yow puts on but still something that should be heard.
"dull, redundant, and pointless piece of crap.."??? Disregard the previous review. TURN IT UP. Also check out "Mouth Breather" on the Goat album.
This is the one where the songs really got in my head right away - not that they're pop chart material, but "Boilermaker" and "Puss" just leave you craving more sheet-metal guitar in the same way poppier stuff might make you want more hooks. Just let me reiterate that this is abrasive as all hell, though. Top-notch noise-rock that I shouldn't have blown off for so long.
saw them at the Great American Music Hall in sf once. they were like a commando unit with a ranting lunatic at the helm !!!
There will never be another band like the Jesus Lizard, and this is their best album. I got a chance to see this crazy band before they broke up. David Yow was stumble drunk before they even started the show. He still managed to crowd surf through the whole set moaning and yelling his intoxicated poetry.
This is my favorie Jesus Lizard album, 10 tracks of drunken Psycho-blues played at 100 miles per hour. Most metal bands wish they had balls this big. Puss is the best punk rock tune ever made,And Boilermaker is f~~kin scary!! Anyone with and interest in rock of any description should also check out Down, Goat and Head.
...of the canned aggression of today's 'rock' music. If you, like the previous reviewer, thought a band with a name like Jesus Lizard were under some obligation to sound a certain way as related to their "bad ass" name, then David Yow is here to kick you in the gut and shut you up. By all accounts, this is not metal, but something more primitive and striking altogether, combining elements of grunge (which they predated, and to which they were an inspiration), metal (which they are not), and out and out aggression, the Jesus Lizard simply come out swinging with a breed of naked insanity that is unsettling and impossible not to marvel at all at once. In fact, the Jesus Lizard sound, as a whole, like some kind of wounded predatory animal, the kind that would chew it's leg off to get out of a bear-trap.
.... it's a dull, redundant, and pointless piece of crap... with a "bad-ass" name like Jesus Lizard... woo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o... I guess I thought it would be at least heavy enough to sink.... instead, it's just a floater... and a two-flusher... in other words, it's guilty of the only crime against art that is possible... it's boring. I wonder if all their albums are this lackluster and uninspired.
Though not the Jesus Lizard's best record - that would be their first full-lengther, "Head" - "Liar" still ranks as one of the most pivotal and powerful releases of the 1990s. From start to finish, it is uncaringly abrasive, like a lunatic kicking you in the gut, then stabbing you in the back, and it nearly perfectly captures everything that was so great about them, the way they mixed punk, blues, chaos, tension and control; it was their last great record.
