Liars / Women / Black Feelings @ Le National (Pop Montreal)

Five albums, numerous splits and EPs, and as many sonic configurations on, Brooklyn avant-garage group Liars now count as veterans. Not only have their LPs kept pace in terms of quality - 2009's Sisterworld might be their most consistent yet - they've also managed to diversify and expand their sound in unexpected ways that have never felt forced. Consistency, of course, is perhaps the least appreciated quality an indie rock band can possess, as evidenced by the mediocre turnout for their triple-bill show for Pop Montreal. They've been around long enough that they now approach institutional levels of familiarity.

Having seen formidable art-rockers Black Feelings at last year's edition of the festival, I arrived in time to witness Calgarians Women, whose sterling second album Public Strain dropped a couple weeks prior. Possibly the most unassuming band currently running, Women crank out 90-second-to-six-minute tunes that worm their way into your headspace the sixth or seventh time you hear them, with the exception of "Black Rice" (from their 2008 self-titled debut), a song so catchy and cleverly constructed it makes an instant impression. Public Strain ditches some of the more outré leanings (found sound, noise collage) of the debut in favor of straight-up four-piece indie rock, albeit with a sense of mathy construction and serious melodic invention. Their live show reconstructs their carefully constructed songs more or less verbatim, with a well-oiled precision that belies years of concentration as a touring unit. They're almost frighteningly proficient, with each head-nod-defying time signature and droning song transition executed perfectly. At this point, they're less a band than a machine.

Favoring spontaneity and ragged climax, Liars are an entirely different beast. Between their LPs, they've gone from being arty dance-punkers (They Threw Us All In a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top) to no-wave concept artists (the fiercely debated They Were Wrong So We Drowned, one of the most daring sophomore LPs of all time) to spacey atmospherists (Drum's Not Dead) to early 70s NYC revivalists (Liars) to a heady, confident blend of all of the above (Sisterworld). What's surprising is that their hour-long set managed to touch on every corner of their output without missing a beat - the five-piece effortlesly moved from more abrasive recent material ("Scissor," "Plaster Casts of Everything" and especially the unhinged "Scarecrows on a Killer Slant") to some of their most intensely atmospheric Drum's Not Dead material and even dipping into their early, accessible stuff ("Loose Nuts on the Velodrome"). While their heavier material suffered a little from their dueling guitarists' identical tones, theirs was an appealingly egalitarian set, even finding time for Drowned's riotous opener "Broken Witch," the song that first announced to fans and critics alike that they weren't going to be sticking to the playbook. Hopefully, music fans will reward their tireless strive towards reinvention and experimentation, rather than just assuming they'll be around forever.