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 clichés. 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