I like to imaging that the title of this album is actually being said by the woman on the cover. Not only because the title matched the indignancy of the sneering look on her face, but also because It helps to set the mood for the whole debauched, brash, loud, and snotty affair.
Liquids is the solo power-pop and garage project of Indianian, Mat Williams. Like a lot of great underground music, the typical linear, chronology that is applied to discographies really doesn’t explain much about this album. Life is Pain Idiot is both kind of a follow-up LP to 2018’s Hot Liqs Revenge and an anthology of previously released songs, re-recorded and included here. So whatever! The punks are going to do what they want. Don’t get bent out of shape about it.
Discogs disrupting or not, Life is Pain Idiot is very much in keeping with Marc’s elected aesthetic. Rough, rogue, and irreconcilably sloppy, the LP sounds like the Ramones took turns barfing into an empty can of Bush’s Beans and then shot it through the front window of Dan Sartain’s classic Chevy Camaro with a potato launcher along with a note rubber-banded around the projectile asking Dan if he wanted to producer their next record. Life is Pain Idiot has the basic structure of classic guitar pop to it, but sounds overwhelmingly as messy, ill-advised, and threatening to personal safety and private property the above described Ramones initiated vandalism would imply, with a hint of boyish sweetness that helps tip their antics over the line from pure antagonism, and into the realm of youthful, playful mischief.
Bands like Liquids used to rule the underground in the MidWest and Great Lakes Region of the US back in the mid-’00s back when groups like Birthday Suits, Orange Iguanas and the Jetty Boys were still active. It’s good to see that someone is still carrying that torch.
You can buy and stream Life is Paint Idiot via Bandcamp below:
