The last time that we heard from Liis, I could not stop gushing about much I love the marriage of folky songwriting and straightforward pop music and drawing (admittedly obnoxious and unnecessary) comparisons to acts like Maggie Rogers and Phoebe Bridgers. The duo was hard at work on an EP that hadn’t been formally announced, and “Thief” saw them planting the tender seeds of heartache and landing blow after lyrical blow, painting elaborate murals of confusion and betrayal with lines like “You’re not the first to have planned this delicate sucker-punch that you’re looking to land/and I’ll know your every move/by the time you talk your body into following through” that lingers just long enough to leave you baited for the next breath, for the next moment perfectly pointed passage that feels like it was written just for you.
I’m happy to say that said EP, now called Put It On; Show It Off, is packed to the brim with those moments. The six songs that make up the record feel well enough fleshed out to hold their own, but come together to create a cohesive collection of captivatingly harrowing pop music. Dance beats and thoughtful lyrics married together to create the ultimate pop record. This is the dance now, cry later kind of songwriting that Jack Antonoff of Bleachers often talks about at it’s best. You can’t help but lose yourself to the powerful pulse of music, and it’s not until you’re thinking back on the song you just heard that the cold hand of heartache finds its place atop your shoulder.
The first lyrics of “Tease” ran through my body like a shot of adrenaline. A somber almost stifled vocal delivers the line “The earth’s getting greedy for my bones/Feel it pulling on me, yeah/It won’t leave me alone” and continues to grow in power as the dual vocals begin to melt into each other, creating something so texturally rich that it would have fit right in on Lorde’s debut album. The melancholic love-song for death and decay creeps up on you like time itself and will most likely leave you doing this weird dance move where your forearms come up to your face to wipe away tears. It’ll seem weird at first, but eventually, anything can start to feel natural.
When asked about the record, Liis says: “Put It On; Show It Off has been a massive culmination of work that is finally ready to be shared – it’s the EP of our dreams. We’ve been around for a while in the Los Angeles scene, but this is Liis finally sharing our music with the masses – and that is terribly exciting and scary. We’re proud of what we’ve been working on, and our goal was to create something people like and relate to. We hope Put It On; Show It Off is that.”
Listen below.
https://soundcloud.com/liismusic/sets/put-it-on-show-it-off/s-dQq9p
Put It On; Show It Off will be released on May 12th.
