Single Review: SCREENS - Lie Lie Lie

   It's a little under a month since Israeli Post Punks SCREENS released new single 'Lie Lie Lie' and Ryan Doyle Elward has been sharpening up his metaphors to their finest point before telling us about this excellent Single.

                                             

Tel-Aviv trio SCREENS rip into their latest single 'Lie Lie Lie' with heat and wit, the full warmth of which is not felt until roughly 50 seconds are left in the track, as reverberant tones spread out over chilly aggregates of synth into a desolate space, but whose message hangs about in the air: a big breath into the cold, blooming then becoming vapor. 

Lines I wasted my youth, now’s the time to tell the truth is first an individualised treatise on time and opportunity, but as such it is a cultural coming-to-terms. It is a refusal to be any longer complicit in the great waiting hinged on the precipice of social change. It is a pulling back of the outstretched arm of patience once extended to systems who held the trust of the people.

The band’s first  album was episodic in its melancholy, but these new releases mark a darker turn in sound. As has been said in many places, SCREENS parallels the music of Preoccupations, Shame, and Protomartyr, and on their first album in particular - the explosive bright, post-punk…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. But here, 'Lie Lie Lie' bears a welcomed harkening back to Bad Religion and their brand of wry, dreary disputing.

'Lie Lie Lie' is the second of only two songs so far released by SCREENS to have English lyrics (the other: 'Fast Factors'), where both are to appear on next year’s forthcoming album of the same name. This decision seems a little pointed (which is perhaps the point) given the political commentary presumed to make-up the rest of the album. But, if it is actually aiming at a specific audience, then it is a well-deserved shot, and we know it.

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SCREENS' previous album was driven and fast paced, but almost always obviously melodic. 'Lie Lie Lie' and 'Fast Factors' by contrast self-corrupt. The progressions in each are a chord away from resolution, and in stopping short convey ruination; a dystopian melodic. 'Lie Lie Lie' is an anthem announcing a problem for which there is already much awareness and invites all agitated parties to join in the provocation. This is not a directive but a declaration of oneness, and the masses have made up their mind.

                                       r.d.e

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