Liars Academy – No News Is Good News – Review

Liars Academy

No News Is Good News (Equal Vision)
by Tim Den

While the artier half of the sorely-missed Cross My Heart went on to create oblique sulkiness in Dead Red Sea, the poppier half (guitarist/vocalist Ryan Shelkett and drummer Evan Tanner) decided to push their former band’s hookier moments into a full-blown band. Thus Liars Academy: A sweeter, slicker version of “London Bridge” and “Self-Loathing Bastard” off of the last Cross My Heart album. Without the artier members keeping them in check, Shelkett and Tanner sometimes venture into cringingly dangerous “kiddiemo” territory… but return safely from those excursions most of the time. “Kamikaze” and the title track (nice falsetto on the latter) especially prove that Liars Academy might have better albums in the making. For now, this is a decent distraction from the harsh fact that Cross My Heart is no more. Fuckin’ boo hoo.
(PO Box 14 Hudson, NY 12534)