'Cruel Liars' by Mightmare
In February, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers issued Nightroamer, their third and sharpest album. Before then, Shook dealt with substance abuse and came out as non-binary. Neither of those actions dimmed the rubbed-raw power of Shook’s alt-country songs, but perhaps they did open a path toward Mightmare.
On that project’s first album, Cruel Liars, Shook writes, arranges, performs and produces just about everything themselves, and the music transmutes their dark honky-tonk spirit into lush indie-pop haunted by synthesizer washes, drum-machine beats and electric-guitar moods from decades not that long past.
However, the transmutation doesn’t summon cotton-candy Caspers of nostalgia; instead, these ghosts are heavy, gray-unto-black clouds of complication. Mightmare isn’t too far away from what the Montreal duo Majical Cloudz achieved in the mid-2010s by turning multiple EDM elements inward until they mastered introspection that was sometimes daring and sometimes despairing.
Nor is Mightmare too close to that: Shook looks outward with oddly pretty touches, like a small cascade of harp notes with a hint of Far East serenity at the close of “Come What May,” and with patiently stern lyrics like “If we’re gonna make it work/You’d better be listening,” in the midtempo thump of “Make It Work.”
If reference points across the songs include The Breeders, The Cranberries, and PJ Harvey, then Shook’s voice offers both thematic unity and a leap beyond the influences. Whether smarting over the subject of the title track or bouncing in lovestruck potential in “Easy,” they prove their emotional conviction with The Disarmers transfers fully to other genres.
There are nevertheless two reasonable complaints about Cruel Liars. First, at less than a half-hour, it leaves the audience wanting more. Second, in a month that also features pop starlet Carly Rae Jepsen finding Moroder-disco bliss with pop classicist Rufus Wainwright, Mightmare and Shook could travel further down the path they’ve opened.
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Mightmare will play the Cactus Club, 2496 S. Wentworth Ave., on Saturday, October 29, at 9 p.m. Suggested donation is $10-20.
