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They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 24 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Mute
Release Date: 24 February 2004
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Experimental
Summary
The New York punk outfit moves even further away from the mainstream on this sophomore effort (a concept album about witch trials), which also sees them with a new rhythm section.
Also By This Artist: Drum's Not Dead Liars They Threw Us in a Trench and Stuck a Monument On Top
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
All Music Guide
By not just defying but denying the expectations about what their music should be like, the Liars have created one of the most fascinating, confrontational albums of the 2000s.
Read Full Review >Tiny Mix Tapes
In the same way Radiohead took an impeccable album like OK Computer and stepped into unfamiliar territory with Kid A, Liars have sidestepped the majority of their familiar styles and broken free towards new explorations.
Read Full Review >ShakingThrough.net
Though it might not be the most easily digestible subject matter, it melds thought and execution as well as any concept album in recent memory.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
Fewer thrills, more chills. [27 Feb 2004, p.98]
Filter
It’s hard to tell if the band wants us to revel along in their psychosis or throw up our hands with disgust.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
Like other scary experiences, it's also frequently exhilarating. [Mar 2004, p.107]
Splendid
A fascinatingly cinematic, image-laden and claustrophobic album that feels like the someone else's nightmare.
Read Full Review >Logo
There’s nothing even remotely punk-funk here, instead conventional structures are stretched, shattered and re-assembled.
Read Full Review >Dot Music
Tapping in to our fearful collective unconscious, Liars have conjured a darkly mesmeric, thrillingly full-blooded, paranoid drama of ritual and occultism built from twitchy electronica, shrieking vintage synths, punk noise and unsettlingly twisted hip hop.
Read Full Review >Urb
So dark and twisted that it makes Joy Division seem like shiny happy people. [Mar 2004, p.110]
Junkmedia
The concept is difficult to follow and the music occasionally unpleasant. But the band’s willingness to stretch in new directions is refreshing.
Read Full Review >The New York Times
The first time through, the album is as much an endurance test as an entertainment, reaching back to New York rock's most raucous no-wave experiments of the late 1970's and also echoing vanguardists like Merzbow and This Heat.
Read Full Review >Trouser Press
Less punkish than its predecessor, the Liars’ second effort, although marred by Wagnerian excess, lyrical inanity and overlong atmospherics, is still a record of non-commercialized large beats and immense technical skill.
Read Full Review >The Wire
For the most part it works, weaving a dark atmosphere of foreboding and dread through the songs. [#240, p.68]
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Anyone expecting a breakout album by a group poised to break out might be left wanting. But as a lateral move to post-punk's crinkly margins, They Were Wrong is an ante-upping exercise, as entrancing as it is bracing.
Read Full Review >Almost Cool
While it doesn't work stunningly as a whole, there are places where the group comes together to create dark and blistering rock tracks that stand with the best work they've ever done.
Read Full Review >Stylus Magazine
It's a much stronger record than you might expect from something that will probably wind up being, in retrospect, a transitional album. [Review 1, score=80] It's just too much; too much noise, too much concept, too much deep NJ woods isolation, and too many witches' tales. [Review 2, score=50]
Pitchfork
Contrary to what some have claimed, They Were Wrong is listenable, and intentionally so: the band frequently finds ways to successfully straddle the fence between form and noise... though most of the time, it's admittedly impenetrable and alienating.
Read Full Review >Uncut
Liars' aim is to challenge the listener with their gruelling strangeness. [Apr 2004, p.101]
New Musical Express
Ultimately, we’re left wondering: have Liars lost it, or found themselves?
Read Full Review >Mojo
Not quite magic but an impressive attempt at experimental spell-weaving. [Mar 2004, p.101]
Alternative Press
Channels the spirits of no wave via clinks and clanks, doomy vocal chants, ominous tribal thumps, abstract guitar scraping and jarring haunted-forrest samples. [Mar 2004, p.110]
Village Voice
Though some sections are plodding and one-dimensional, others lock into place.
Read Full Review >Playlouder
'They Were Wrong, So We Drowned' is a remarkably assured second album, and considerably more audacious than its predecessor, but it's a far from flawless affair.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
The idiosyncratic intellectualism, the schrapnels of noise, and the outlandish creative liberties are still there, but without the funk these elements are uncomfortably exposed, like a naked body standing shivering in the cold.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
An electronic-noise collage that sounds disturbingly rooted in the what-the-fuck? tradition of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.
Read Full Review >Spin
Unlistenable. [Mar 2004, p.96]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Eric C gave it an8:
Oh, the benefit of retrospect, right? Years have passed since this album's release, and most critics, either through recent Liars reviews and articals, have admitted that They Were Wrong was underrated. Little good that does to their mediocre Metascore, which will scare away potential listeners. It's their loss, as this album is neither unlistenable or overly difficult. So what if it's not their greatest triumph so far. It's definately more engaging than their debut and their recent self-titled release. They took a sharp left turn after a hyped up review and the critics were shocked and felt betrayed. How dare a band explore new ideas and sounds, right? That's only allowed for Bob Dylan and Radiohead. Whatever, this is a fantastic album for anyone willing to give it their time.
Brian C. gave it a10:
My favorite cd of all time, and certainly the best liars cd as well in my opinion.
Eoin T gave it a10:
F*cking ace.
AView AM gave it a10:
Hehe...Rolling Stone dropped the ball on Pinkerton and they did it again here. Spin and Rolling Stone just keep on proving why no one with more than half a brain even reads their magazines anymore. They Were Wrong is one of the more challenging albums I've ever come across and after wrestling with it for, what, two years now? I've come to the unmistakable conclusion that it's probably the best alubm ever, only in disguise.
Ryan M gave it a9:
whoever made that This Heat reference was right on the money. only i'd argue that this trumps their work, builds on it. along with this heat, you hear traces of that "negation" that is so strongly associated with PiL and (though it's an overused reference) the whole nyc "no wave" movement of the late 70's/early 80's - but enough name-dropping and boring analysis. the album creates a mood that, to my ears, is thoroughly unique to it, and that's reason enough to praise it. that it has a number of excellent, memorable tracks - try tracks 3, 5, and 6 on for size - is just gravy.
Ace! gave it a 10:
First of all, people who claim that this album is unlistenable pay too much attention to critics. Even just a cursory listen reveals that not only is it very listenable, but most often quite engaging. It is one of the few releases of the year I can still listen to all the way through. Not only do I just plain like this release, but also it earns it's place in my canon by its sheer ability to divide. Also, in this time, it is always a good sign of an album's originality that comparisons to other artists are very rarely consistent from review to review and often based on very tenuous connections. Over all, still, five months after its release, I see it as perhaps the most interesting and most deserving album of the year thus far.
Nick Y gave it a 0:
Utterly unlistenable crap
