Kills And Thrills – Liars – Mini Review

Release Date: March 23rd, 2010
Record Label: Hotfoot Records
Genre: Post Hardcore/Punk

Long Island, NY the stomping ground of Kills and Thrills, the quartet recently released their sophomore album entitled Liars on Hotfoot Records. The record spans ten tracks and hits around twenty-eight minutes. The effort definitely gives a somewhat post hardcore vibe, minus the high low dual vocalists and generic breakdown approach (for the most part). Despite the somewhat quirky song titles Kills and Thrills approach is attention grabbing with sharp hooks and solid production. The vocals simply fit with the crunching guitars and the punk drums and thick bass lines hidden in the background on “Lady Panther.” Despite the somewhat pointless song titles “Fight Riff” “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World” because one mad simply isn’t enough, but I guess that is just a niche of the genre. The faster punk inspired riffs on the track though are a nice change of pace showing the band isn’t one dimensional as some of the song titles might lead you to believe. The punk influence seems to play a large part on the latter half of the album and it flows a lot better in my opinion. While the album is solid, it doesn’t really blow me away even though I enjoyed it, comparable to when you see a funny movie without a solid plot, you’ll laugh at the jokes but you don’t really recall much of the film. Liars will have you tapping your toes and nodding your head, but after it is over you might remember a track or two for me it was “Crow’s Nest” and “Rip it Up” but the rest seemed to blend together and is foggy in my memory, not that they were bad. It is a really good sound and solid effort from a band that I think has some serious potential. ~James Terry
Score: 3.75/5