John Grant - The Art of The Lie

Lying is rather like borrowing money from an alternate reality. The liars don't exist in it and yet they bank on its invented energy. American singer-songwriter and former Czars frontman John Grant knows this all too well, not least the degree to which the lie is indelibly riven across every facet of modern society; his latest album takes its title after the concept and, though its message is a bitter pill, it's also packed with humour and bombast, stylistically straddling everything from electro-pop to alt-indie in a whirlwind of named (and in the lattermost case, featured) influences from the Art Of Noise to Laurie Anderson to Vangelis to (the album's producer) Ivor Guest. A politically sprawling project spanning many contemporary gripes, The Art Of The Lie is an extreme effort at sublimating the frustration of the now.