Liars - Illumnations @ Village Underground, London 01/11/14

The late evening stage time worked in Liars’ favour, as the sold out crowd in the cavernous Village Underground were well lubricated and primed. Drummer Butchy Fuego and guitarist/knob twiddler Aaron Hemphill slunk onstage in the near pitch black to begin proceedings with a sinister swell of deep synths and frenetic electronic beats, before Angus Andrew burst out to an explosion of lights and the full force of recent single “Pro Anti Anti”.

Andrew, known for his eccentric style, was adorned in a woollen mask draped in strands of multicoloured yarn reminiscent of the cover of the band’s most recent album Mess, from which a large chunk of the evening’s set was taken. Gesticulating like an androgynous robot from the future, Andrew commanded the front rows of the audience who held their arms up high as though worshiping at the feet of a space age demigod.

The sonic onslaught continued with “Mask Maker”, the crowd chanting along to the impossibly weird opening refrain of “Take my face off/Give me your face” before erupting into a sea of bobbing heads and waving arms. The fact that half the crowd had their faces painted in varying degrees of zombified decay in honour of Halloween couldn’t have been more fitting in the face of the ground shaking spooky disco emanating from the stage.

But it seemed that this initial excitement was maybe a little too much too soon. Just as synths and drum loops can get the party started, they can also temper it as was proved when the band slid into “WIXIW”, taken from their 2012 album of the same name. After the hyperactivity of the first half of the set, the slow ambience of the song subdued the crowd into a soporific lull, like a sugar crash after too much Halloween candy.

But the lights soon shone out to reveal Andrew, woollen mask now cast aside, swinging the microphone to latest single “I’m No Gold”, and it didn’t take long for the crowd to revive, not least due to the band’s seemingly boundless energies on stage. The hypnotic “No. 1 Against The Rush” brought things fully back to life, the infectious grooves and instrumental juggling of Gross, who darted seamlessly between bass guitar and drum kit, had everyone moving in the sweaty air once again.

As Andrew announced the final song Liars broke out a reminder that they are still a band who can deliver blistering results without the use of extensive electronics by way of “Plaster Casts of Everything”. The frenzied guitar, drum and vocal combo of the track showed that Liars have the capacity to shake the foundations with a round of solid angular rock.

And that’s where the night really should have ended. The crowd began shuffling towards the doors, a collective sweaty and elated mess but the hardcore front rows were baying for more and Liars obliged with a two song encore of older material ending with “Broken Witch”. The slow burn of the song would have been better suited to the beginning of their set rather than the end, and part of the crowd continued to shuffle out as the band played, happy enough with the crescendo of the main set. Maybe when it comes to a Liars show, a little bit less can prove to be a whole lot more.