Tenebrous Liar know how to use a thesaurus.

Tenebrous (adj.): dark, gloomy, obscure. - dictionary.com

Without listening to a note, TL tells us what’s up. The album art is of a tenebrous forest (or possibly an outtake from Sleepy Hollow, sans Depp), and some quick research tells us that TL is led by famed rock photographer Steve Gullick (NME, Plan B). This guy’s shooting style is so grunge he actually managed to make the Flaming Lips look pissed off.

Last Stand is a sonic extension of Gullick’s photography, and also a considerable improvement over their self-titled EP. With the slow pace and distortion of stoner rock (without th e bombast), TL shows considerable and mature restraint in their markedly low-fi, atmospheric and dissonant rock.

And when TL finally decide to cut loose in closer 'Last Stand', screaming vocals, dark psychedelia and string bending smack you right in the face. Mixing noise with coherent bass lines on ‘Alight’, TL touches on the Jesus and Mary Chain and much of the 90's underground grunge scene that Gullick grew up shooting. The only difference is that it feels like listening to an angry, know-it-all ex-hipster, drunk and melancholy at a dive bar. It’s Grinderman, without the wit and poetry of Mr. Cave.

At times Gullick's lyrics are heavy-handed - “I've been tortured by...I've been shipwrecked by", "there's no way out". It seems a bit unnecessary to constantly reinforce this motif. Yet it’s somehow believable, and at times oddly optimistic. If Tenebrous Liar are attempting to create a visual, my mind does conjure the amp, guitar and booze strewn East London flat that TL’s press release describes, but perhaps with some natural light creeping in from under the curtains.

Track Listing

Blood Moon
Pretender
One Last Time
Hunch
Doomed
Sour
All That You Know
Alight
Tenebrous Liar
Last Stand