English record label Drunken Sailor Records released this sweet and short EP. For some reason that made me believe Liquids are an English band. And that’s not only because this EP is released on an English label. The band sounds like they could be from that funny little island. I was wrong though. Dead wrong. Liquids hails from Indiana. And as I have recently discovered, have that certain Indiana sound. There is scene bursting with bands delivering music with more or less the same influences as Liquids, such as The Coneheads (with whom Liquids shares a member), ZAP, ABC Gum, etc etc.
But, back to Liquids. More Thana Friend (I guess the spelling error isn’t accidental, as I see it repeated everywhere) is part of a large series of albums and EPs. The band is really productive. After listening to a bit of their earlier work I conclude that the band is consistent in their sound. There’s no grand deviation or experimentation on this EP. Instead you get what the band does best: raw and catchy garage punk. The production of this EP is lo-fi and pretty primitive. If you want your punk sounding smooth, this band is not for you. In addition (but, if you go lo-fi this follows more or less automatically, right?) the playing on this record sounds loose and careless. If you’re not the audiophile punker, you’ll get some catchy hooks and recklessness. It’s not all sunshine though. Opening track “More Thana Friend” starts out catchy as hell, but due to lack of movement overstays its welcome. Lasting over four minutes it could well be cut in half and be more enjoyable for it. The other two songs of this EP do not suffer from this mistake and are much, much more enjoyable. The overly long opening track makes it a bit of an unpleasant listening that explains the score.
As I was a slacker with reviewing this, you’re probably too late to get a physical copy. Only 111 EPs were made.
