Lola Ray - Liars

Genre rock Publisher Red Ink External Links Official Lola Ray Website

Lola Ray's Liars stands apart from the masses of up and coming bands. The California natives show a unique sound in their new album. Liars is pop infused with a darker sound and topped off with a dash of wuss rock (wuss rock: Think Guster, Llama, Josh Rouse - not soft rock, not hard rock, but not whiney enough to be emo).

I never thought it was possible for all three of these sounds to cohabitate in one album, let alone on single songs. Lola Ray does an amazing job of incorporating these different muscial styles. You would never think about having Ryan Miller of Guster sing lead vocals with The Cure. Somehow Lola Ray makes the two styles gel together flawlessly.

The track "Officer & A Gentleman" is a great opener for the album, showing the range of the band. One of the highlights includes the almost dissonant vocals on the chorus of "This House." It has a robotic, haunting, creepiness to it. The voices clash, but it is still so beautiful. Liars even closes strong with "Attraction." The track wraps up the album, and it finishes strong with an instrumental showcase.

The wuss rock influence is most evident through the vocals, many of the tracks have tight harmonics. Instrumentally, Lola Ray does a great job of capturing many dimensions of their sound. The band seems to have a good handle on keeping things interesting without making it sound too cluttered.