Liturgy

http://i.imgur.com/AhLFl.jpg

the last minute of harmonia is one of the best things i've heard all year!!!

(haven't listened to all of aesthetica tho yet tbh)

\m/

good album

"Burzum meets Bone Thugs n Harmony" is the descriptor given in a recent Noisey article re: their new record "The Ark Work". I love those things individually, and could see a raw black metal rap project being incredible, but I have sincere doubts about this one.

three songs in and it seems like it's just the vocals having a more hip hop cadence rather than something more blatant. sounds pretty cool imo

I am pleasantly surprised to say I am enjoying the hell out of this. There is absolutely no way any metal fans are going to be down with this weird like, Bizzy Bone x Blut Aus Nord style, but it's doing something for me.

On first listen it sounds joyous and glittery.

"Reign Array", my goodness

This is surprisingly good. But man, is this gonna piss some folks off, and I completely understand that reaction.

But yeah, "Reign Array" and "Kel Valhaal" are so great.

I really don't know what to think of this album as a whole, but the first three tracks are amazing together. Love the horns.

Since seeing EZ's tweet about this album over the weekend I've been really anxious to hear it. Also anxious to see the kvlt blow their lids over it. Not so anxious for another twelve dozen thinkpieces about Liturgy though.

given that a huge part of Bone Thugs' appeal is that they harmonize I'm a little skeptical of this presskit look

Not so anxious for another twelve dozen thinkpieces about Liturgy though.

otm

that's why I'm hoping everyone will just agree this is rad

strongly disliked "quetzalcoatl" when it got linked to metalthread a month or so back. not cuz impure, but the lifeless vocals really repelled me. i quite liked the more densely packed of the songs two main sections, but not enough to get me over the dreary rest. still curious...

This is surprisingly good. But man, is this gonna piss some folks off, and I completely understand that reaction.

But yeah, "Reign Array" and "Kel Valhaal" are so great.

― EZ Snappin, Friday, February 20, 2015 6:25 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

y do you understand this reaction? liturgy are just doin liturgy. prescriptive black metallers who accept nazi bands but not hendrix's attempts to "transcend the haptic void" are the worst people

I understand because people will be expecting metal of some sort based on the band's past and this isn't a metal album.

it's sort of a metal album

i'm on my third trip through "reign array", and while the blackmetal signposting is very clear (mostly in the guitars), i'm more inclined to call this metal-influenced progressive indierock than metal as such. not sure what to make of it, tbh, but at least it's not yr standard-issue anything. though i like this track a good deal more than "quetzalcoatl", dude's vocals are still a big problem.

this came up after reign array last time through. you're welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcTlFxkmDhk

Today, we continue to praise and glorify God, through a multiple, array of gifts and talents displayed through the presentation of theatrical type arts currently known, more commonly, as mime and praise dancing.

from his transcendental black metal essay from 2k10 or 11 or something:

the burst beat is a hyper blast beat, a blast beat that ebbs, flows, expands and contracts, breathes.

i think they've really accomplished this here, especially on quetzalcotl

the vocals are starting to remind me of Liars, which is fine by me

he sounds kinda like panda bear

the vocals are starting to remind me of Liars, which is fine by me

otm, was thinking the same thing earlier on. but in a bad way.

well I tried listening to this but it's not really my thing, cheers to people who dig it, it's all good

metal-influenced progressive indierock

I would cut "progressive" from here - the riffs for sure are metallic but the presentation, all the aesthetic choices, are really...the kind of indie rock that was popular around 2007?

I loved the indie rock that was popular around 2007 (I'm guessing you mean Battles, Fang Island, perhaps even Parts & Labor or so) and I've been missing it, and yeah, this does sound a bit like that. But that was always a bit progressive inspired as well.

I like this album more and more, but it doesn't flow as much as I want it to.

prescriptive black metallers who accept nazi bands but not hendrix's attempts to "transcend the haptic void" are the worst people

this is not a binary

uh you guys what is this

he is trying to transcend the haptic void duh

http://www.radicalmatters.com/metasound/pdf/Hideous.Gnosis.Black.Metal.Theory.Symposium.I.pdf

i saw greg fox drumming last weekend (not with liturgy) and i have some observations

1) what a maniac! wow. made it look so easy too.
2) he is the healthiest looking metal drummer i have seen in probably ever, kudos to him for that and also for wearing a shirt
3) i need to check out guardian alien bc i'm not sure i care about this band but he was an incredible drummer

no offense intended at other metal drummers -- they are probably v healthy

He's amazing. Definitely check out his work with Guardian Alien and Zs.

have enjoyed a GA record or two but when I saw them play it was kind of like a set-length drum solo with some other parts added as an afterthought

sick (healthy) drummer though for sure

i still have to listen to that Zs record. he talks about some healthy stuff here:
http://noisey.vice.com/en_ca/blog/greg-fox-guardian-alien-interview

I caught these guys last night. The songs really blossomed for me in a live setting; Hunt-Hendrix's voice sinks back and lets everything else take center stage. "Reign Array" was gorgeous and majestic.

Talking to friends, it seems they've been a bit hit or miss on this tour. Last night was hit after hit, even with a guitar dying on the second to last song. Greg Fox launched into a hypnotic solo as they sorted out replacement gear and then it was straight back to business.

Washington Post loves the drummer. Article on him

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/the-joy-of-drumming-with-liturgys-greg-fox/2015/04/06/75e66b4a-dc71-11e4-a500-1c5bb1d8ff6a_story.html

They should love Greg! Everyone should love Greg. Very nice guy, and a joy to watch and hear.

i just impulse bought a ticket to the show friday
i will turn into a pumpkin at midnight, but i'll get to catch the openers and they're pretty good (horse lords and another band i don't know) and a little of liturgy if i'm lucky.
his whole worldview re drumming is really otm and inspiring

Yes! Seeing Liturgy and Horse Lords on a double bill is a rad idea

The show in Dallas was Horse Lords at 8, Sannhet at 9 and Liturgy at 10. I was home by 11:30. It was awesome.

Hm, that might be worth a trip to Montreal.

Liturgy, Horse Lords, and Sannhet sounds very exhausting.

I'm looking forward to catching them with Lightning Bolt in a few weeks!

this show starts at 9 so i expect to miss some liturgy but that's ok bc i have a (really long) class to teach the next morning

Sund4r I'll be at that show
Greg is amazing, Guardian Alien is amazing

It wasn't exhausting at all. Maybe 2 hours and 10 minutes of music total, spread out over three hours and in pretty different styles.

Listening to Kel Valhaal for the first time

:D

all of metal heard this song and cried and cried

just the best sort of annoying

Why would metal cry at what sounds like a CD of In The Nursery skipping?

seriously

this album is brilliant. 'reign array' and 'follow II' the highights but it all makes sense to me.

imo Kel Valhaal is totally their career highpoint to date, to the extent that you could bin near enough all their other songs and I wouldn't be too bothered

it's also kind of a nonsense setting up this imaginary confrontation with 'metal' - if I'd heard it first w/o knowing it was Liturgy I'd guess it had come from that Mego/PAN side of the tracks and wouldn't have given metal music/culture any consideration. which I'd say was a success wrt what I imagine Liturgy were trying to achieve here

yer right, but the narrative is so hard to escape

I love this album, it's brilliant. It would be better maybe if some of the instruments sounded less artificial but I guess it goes well with the glitch elements. But it's an incredibly well-written record and it's certainly unique. I actually don't understand why Liturgy always get dumped on so much, they're one of the most creative and characterful bands around now imo.

Hunter H-H may allegedly be a pretentious pseud (never read the "manifesto", never will) but I don't why that's so enraging to metalheads. At least he's not a fucking fascist.

Their live show is face-meltingly loud, almost as loud as Melt-Banana

there's a bit in a pitchfork interview where he and his bandmates are just wandering around a jewish steam-room being all reflective and euphoric and it's pretty much the perfect evocation of why everyone hates them and why they're awesome. fwiw i reckon HHH is probably a mensch irl

'follow II' is a song that must, MUST have been written with me in mind. it's scarily close to what i'd want from a seven and a half minute metal song

ha melt-banana are the best gig i've ever been to, will have to see liturgy if they come around here

they're coming in a couple of weeks and I intend to be there

btw this album is absolutely extraordinary - 'follow II' is one of those pieces of music I'm staggered even exists - it feels like I must have dreamt it

Really, dude? Really?!

Their live show is face-meltingly loud, almost as loud as Melt-Banana

― I Am Curious (Dolezal) (DJP), Thursday, October 8, 2015 12:55 PM (1 week ago)

That was not my experience.

Mine either (although when I saw them they were just two dudes).

Yeah really. What is the beef?

No beef! I just don't find it, uh, oneiric.

To my ears it's charmless, depthless and so poorly produced as to be laughable; as someone who's listened to metal for thirty years and weird noise for twenty, I feel like I should be able to hear something in it that the fans hear.

So you guys can think I'm blind to it's grand beauty, I'll go back to listening to Tyranny and ignoring the fulsome praise people are heaping on Ark Work.

I haven't seen The Ark Work get a good reception ANYWHERE outside a few scattered dudes with odd taste though. I understand your reaction though, sometimes I can't help but be baffled when I see lots of praise for something I think is objectively terrible.

Seriously, this record is not popular. On RYM it has 2.71 out of 5 - for comparison's sake, Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz has 2.45. People are going well out of their way to pile on the hate. Even most of those who like it have severe reservations. Only a few mad souls are hip to Hunter's vibe, yo

(I think it is a crazy and ambitious experiment in sound and narrative that largely succeeds because rather than despite of the lengths it goes to to synthesise seemingly incongruent sonic palettes - it is an arrogant work, and all the better for this)

also it is bad

but less bad than the other liturgy records

honestly if they had made a whole album of "fanfare" I would be repping hard for these guys as an interesting (if not really related to metal) act - it develops really nicely, strikes me an an honest piece of "modern classical" writing

the rest of this is really pretty unoriginal to my ear, there are a ton of black metal bands from finland and norway and france who've been covering this kinda ground musically for ages. the one thing that's different is the indie-rock horns, or soft-horns, which I rather like in terms of what they're doing musically - but this whole Brooklyn approach to metal -- "it's black metal...plus horns! it's black metal...plus shoegaze!" is so tiresome. maybe just write good black metal and quit gunning for that BNM by being novel with the kitchen-sink biz?

but less bad than the other liturgy records

I like the two previous albums a lot, but I haven't even made it through this one.

the other two felt like (per jd) brooklyny genre exercises while the new one is at least kind of absurd in its blog-bait nature (or whatever the 2015 equivalent is).

i think it is a little strange that for all the goofy black metal appropriations and corpse paint minstrel show stuff of the past 10 years no one has decided to mash up "good production" and "black metal." all the liturgy stuff sounds almost as crummy as some one man ukrainian nazi bandcamp shit despite having an infinitely larger recording budget.

despite having an infinitely larger recording budget

Where's your evidence for this? They're on Thrill Jockey, not Roadrunner or even Metal Blade.

Also, there are plenty of black metal bands with good production! The French bands sound amazing, as does Satyricon (who just made a double live album with a fucking orchestra) and probably a million others, going back to Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth in the late '90s/early '00s.

idk i feel like there are bands on thrill jockey that manage to record on a drumkit that's not made of papier-mache.

point taken re: french bm bands and the dimmu/cof type bands, though that stuff veers closer to over- rather than well-produced

i just want drums that sound good tbh. that cheesy deafheaven album has good drums

Seriously, this record is not popular. On RYM it has 2.71 out of 5 - for comparison's sake,

"Seriously, a site that thinks Madvillainy is one of the 100 greatest records of all time doesn't like this album"

there are a ton of black metal bands from finland and norway and france who've been covering this kinda ground musically for ages

to an extent, but I do often try to listen to such music and to my ears this sounds like it is genuinely up to something different, both in the use of shifting rhythms and the chiming rasping electronic textural overload - it is euphoric art-rock more than BM perhaps but this does not invalidate it

maybe just write good black metal and quit gunning for that BNM by being novel with the kitchen-sink biz?

I believe HHH when he says this is the closest he's gotten to recording the sound in his head. I don't suspect he'd be good at just good pop black metal because his heart would not be in it. he is a precocious little shit who's biting off barely as much as he cam chew - he is shooting at the moon because he can't see anywhere beneath it. I can well empathise with this - leave prudence and timeworn craft to those who have the patience to make such music. we need our stubborn innovators too, even if they're really truly in actual fact making 2007-era indie rock (comparable examples please)

also his songwriting narratives are p exciting to me - the way follow ii builds and then dissolves over and over again into the abyss - that is spectacular imo and I have heard an awful lot of spectacular music

Whiney yr not srsly going to make me cherrypick something worse outta the Acclaimed Music top hundred right

it's crude but it illustrates just how much antipathy the metal community, very many of whom post to RYM, has for the album

What other albums does this sound like? I thought it was fairly unique which is why it's been singled out for hatred. I mean if there's other stuff like this out there I want to hear it

I just wish all the huffy dismissal that H3 gets was directed at Deafheaven tbh

the two bands aren't really anything alike, which is why their mention rankles

but yeah, Deafheaven are turgid dullardry, I get the sense that Liturgy are seen as more 'anti-metal' though, which is a shame, because I thought the point of metal was to be extreme

because I thought the point of metal was to be extreme

only 15 year olds say that

ok, I thought the point of metal was to convey the extremities of human experience, especially viz à vis death and the infinite

anyway, that isn't the post you all have to answer. the two posts in response to JCLC and Whiney are the ones you have to answer, not the sidetrack shit dissing deafheaven who shouldn't even be in this thread

I'm not sure you know much about metals history

why did I give you all an easy tangent with which to berate me

state of music discourse on here I swear

which black metal albums pass the bechdel test?

I'm not sure you know much about metals history

― Cosmic Slop, Sunday, 18 October 2015 21:02 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not being funny but how does this even matter?

If extreme metal's not forging onwards and upwards what's the fucking point?

I trawl through so many mediocre metal albums on a weekly basis I really wish metal wasn't so in love with it's own shitty "heritage."

well imago tried to tell us that metal is supposed to be extreme etc yet he admits he has no interest in its history and hasnt listened to many old bands; so how does he know?

if he wasnt trying to tell some lifers what metal is about of course it wouldnt matter.

fwiw i prefer bands these days who do like to push on with the genre and if that includes 'brooklynisation' then so be it. imago and i like a lot of similar things, it just annoys me when he dismisses some stuff that at times is better than the examples he gives.

but i will defer any more replies to smithy as he puts it a lot better than I ever could.

"If extreme metal's not forging onwards and upwards what's the fucking point?"

fat beats. tasty likks. i will listen to all these mediocre metal records. okay, maybe not mediocre. but i will listen to all these par for the course metal records.

do you know how many garage band hendrix covers i've heard in my life? 4,039,939. very few of them elevated the discussion. kinda love them all.

i do not care for liturgy. the vocals really bug me though. i like the new ghost bath album! that's an album godspeed you black emperor fans would like. or agalloch fans. i dunno, they are just dorks from north dakota that pretended to be from china, but i dig it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnz7lcei1IA

why is it people still buy into the myth of progress in music when it's been thoroughly debunked everywhere else

autopsy has been spinning their wheels for twenty years and are considerably better than any dozen BUT LOOK HERE, THEY PLAYED AN OUD ON THEIR METAL ALBUM bros

why is it people still buy into the myth of progress in music when it's been thoroughly debunked everywhere else

Yep. Go "onward and upward" your own ass all you want. I'll be over here with my Obituary albums.

there are a ton of black metal bands from finland and norway and france who've been covering this kinda ground musically for ages

to an extent, but I do often try to listen to such music and to my ears this sounds like it is genuinely up to something different, both in the use of shifting rhythms and the chiming rasping electronic textural overload - it is euphoric art-rock more than BM perhaps but this does not invalidate it

maybe just write good black metal and quit gunning for that BNM by being novel with the kitchen-sink biz?

I believe HHH when he says this is the closest he's gotten to recording the sound in his head. I don't suspect he'd be good at just good pop black metal because his heart would not be in it. he is a precocious little shit who's biting off barely as much as he cam chew - he is shooting at the moon because he can't see anywhere beneath it. I can well empathise with this - leave prudence and timeworn craft to those who have the patience to make such music. we need our stubborn innovators too, even if they're really truly in actual fact making 2007-era indie rock (comparable examples please)

also his songwriting narratives are p exciting to me - the way follow ii builds and then dissolves over and over again into the abyss - that is spectacular imo and I have heard an awful lot of spectacular music

this was my first impression on hearing the Ark Work, haven't listened since (and in fairness, I should):

First time listening to this band. I've heard the drummer Greg Fox a few times, mostly improv stuff, and was always really impressed. Saw him do a trio with Trevor Dunn (Mr Bungle) and Colin Stetson on sax, and it was totally engaging, like a weird cross of extreme metal and free-jazz.

This, on the other hand, is pretty bullshit as far as I can tell. A lot of stroking and never cumming. Minor modes get pounded for scores of minutes a time, and never really pay off to anything worthwhile. The singer has a monotone whine that not only doesn't service the music, it actively dissuades me from believing any of this is more than a project of desperate boredom, of someone trying in vain to force blood out of a particularly bland turnip. By comparison, stack it up against the Dodheimsgard record, which has the exact opposite problem -- LOADS of ambition and originality that might turn folks off because it has too many disparate ideas. Liturgy sound like they don't have enough, and (over) compensate by banging the shit out of them.

Who knows, maybe if I listen more, stuff will seem better.

and yeah, the talk about Deafheaven's drummer on the other thread relevant here, because Greg Fox really is one of the more interesting drummers working today, and I wish this band was anywhere as interesting as his playing

autopsy has been spinning their wheels for twenty years and are considerably better than any dozen BUT LOOK HERE, THEY PLAYED AN OUD ON THEIR METAL ALBUM bros

otm

Oh, I think the Dodheimsgard album is significantly better - I think it's one of the best metal albums of this century so far if not ever, for what that's worth

I also listened to Orthrelm's OV in its entirety earlier, just for fun so bear THAT in mind too, yo

It's just...yeah, there's a melodic theme which 4 or 5 of the songs return to, but it's rendered differently each time - it's better to think of the album as a single piece, really. It doesn't have nearly so many ideas as Dodheimsgard but imo it has a very vibrant and original character; sure, it is the insistent hallelujah of the irksome prig who knows he is saved, but to me there is something wonderful in how much conflict and sonic rancour he must fight through to achieve his epiphany. In some ways, also, it is a subtle album (don't laugh!) with very slight shifts in momentum that add up to more than bland repetition

I did used to love that Orthrelm record a lot when it came out, haven't heard it in a while -- but I suspect I'd at least like it now. Offhand, the main striking difference between it and Liturgy is that Orthrelm aren't dramatic (and certainly not melodramatic). They do their thing, and you can take it or leave it -- it only gets annoying if you can't hang with really high pitched repetition, which is almost a physical barrier for listening. The barrier I had with Liturgy was more artistic in nature. (and if I was going to have issues with Dodheimsgard, they'd also be artistic rather than physical -- but I don't have those issues for whatever reason)

A lot of stroking and never cumming.
it's 2015 can we stop saying stuff like this?

Greg Fox really is one of the more interesting drummers working today, and I wish this band was anywhere as interesting as his playing
otm, he is the only reason i went to see liturgy

never said it before, but fuck off it was on a message board

wow
alright

Yep. Go "onward and upward" your own ass all you want. I'll be over here with my Obituary albums.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Monday, 19 October 2015 03:14 (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Niiiiice.

I will concede my last post was kind of stupid and badly put since I'd been down the pub and really should have gone to bed by then... but I AM genuinely tired of the way metal celebrates box-ticking supposed tradition. Metal's not alone in doing that I know.

I don't really think Liturgy is pointing the way to the future, and there are many valid criticisms of The Ark Work but I don't see why it can't exist alongside the many, MANY acts that for better or worse stick very much inside genre boundaries.

I AM genuinely tired of the way metal celebrates box-ticking supposed tradition

I get that. But I'm with JCLC in being extremely tired of rhetoric, particularly rhetoric from critics who review maybe three metal albums a year, about how important a given album is precisely because it's "metal-but-not-really" in one way or another. It's been going on for a long, long time at this point, and the idea that the tradition might have innate value - that it might be more than just a series of aesthetic signifiers for dorks who think they invented something to use as a springboard - gets more and more remote and impossible to even consider. (Of course, metal criticism has its own problems, like entire 20-to-50-album year-end lists that don't contain a single release with clean vocals, but that's something different.)

to further triangulate my appreciation of Liturgy, imo this year's Napalm Death album completely crushes it - it'll be somewhere in my year-end top twenty coz it is so good but I will cop to usually wanting greater sonic thrills allied to good songwriting which is why Liturgy and Dodheimsgard will be above it. Doesn't mean that the Napalm Death isn't brilliant, or that they're not making exactly the sort of music they should be. The same presumably goes for a lot of other trad-metal albums I need to check out (there are so many though! So much metal! I haven't heard the Skepticism yet for a start, and then there's Shape of Despair, Akhlys, Obsequiae...those are just the ones on my queue!)

what was the first metal-not-metal sensation? i mean, once "extreme metal" splintered off into discrete traditions there was still a lot of indie rock overlap in terms of unsane and amrep and shit. but once metal started to mean longsleeve tshirts with inverted pentagrams running down the sleeve i feel like the boundaries were pretty solidly drawn up until isis/sunn early-00s ascendance.

nb longsleeve tshirts with pentagrams are a wardrobe staple

nah there is a shitload of not metal that predates them

give a listen to OLD's album Formula for instance

"how important a given album is precisely because it's "metal-but-not-really" in one way or another."

this is forever and ever though. in rock crit. the first or second BOC album had a sticker on it with a quote from metal mike saunders saying how they had transcended the genre! literally decades of this.

I AM genuinely tired of the way metal celebrates box-ticking supposed tradition

I get that. But I'm with JCLC in being extremely tired of rhetoric, particularly rhetoric from critics who review maybe three metal albums a year, about how important a given album is precisely because it's "metal-but-not-really" in one way or another. It's been going on for a long, long time at this point, and the idea that the tradition might have innate value - that it might be more than just a series of aesthetic signifiers for dorks who think they invented something to use as a springboard - gets more and more remote and impossible to even consider. (Of course, metal criticism has its own problems, like entire 20-to-50-album year-end lists that don't contain a single release with clean vocals, but that's something different.)

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Monday, 19 October 2015 16:08 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's all fair. No-one likes being told by dilettantes how they're Enjoying Metal Wrong. I get that, though I probably sometimes get dangerously close to doing it myself. I listen to more metal than anything else myself it's just that my taste's a bit peculiar and perhaps too swayed by perceived novelty.

I don't believe that "the idea that the tradition might have innate value..." is really under threat though. There will probably always be contemporary bands that sound like they're from different eras of metal, like retro-thrash and the like. I mean there are still new bands that rip hard on Black Sabbath and NWOBHM to this day. That's an aspect of metal that's not going away soon.

https://i.imgflip.com/ss9f7.jpg

the retro sabbath stuff is probably my least favorite current popular sub-genre. maybe because like black metal its easy to ape? i get a lot of haircut come lately vibes from some of those bands. their album covers always look good though. i have funeral doom for all my sabbath needs. and uh the rest of metal...

"what was the first metal-not-metal sensation?"

It was probably Napalm Death actually.

don't need any more italian movie soundtrack metal in my life either...

Lot of rules Scott.

It was probably Napalm Death actually.

I doubt they would've called themselves a metal band at all until well into Barney's tenure... grindcore sort of aligned itself more with anarchist punk and crusty stuff early on, IIRC.

so i guess i should hear that new DHG album, huh? haven't listened to them in a long time.

I think we went through these same arguments on frobishers extreme metal poll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVYwVQ8huzs

okay the new DHG is the first one since the last album i heard so i guess i didn't miss much! and listening to this on youtube i wonder if i would really need to hear this for an hour...pretty funny though.

"I doubt they would've called themselves a metal band at all until well into Barney's tenure..."

I think critics might have disagreed, but grindcore was not really one thing to be sure.

still love that dhg record, it's so weird

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/why-are-black-metal-fans-such-elitist-assholes

At their gig. They're on in forty minutes. Stoked, yah

HHH is on the arena floor, swigging some fizzy beverage. Guy in a Liturgy shirt next to me wandered over to say hi but the second he moved, HHH drifted off to the other side of the floor, without looking. I now think he was drinking a special energy drink that gives him ESP

He only notices you if you start chanting HE-EEEY HE-EEEEY HE-EEEY

Hahaha they are totally dressed to troll

hope youre enjoying it lj! Not seen them live, and despite having their first two albums I havent heard the new one yet as im skint.

Oh man that was rad

I was about 4 feet from Greg Fox

Can't hear anything except tinnitus now

Do we (gf + me) stay at the front now or let the Three Trapped Tigers fans have a go? We know nothing about them

Correction: "I've listened to two of their albums on Spotify!"

Well so-rry

The people behind us are very, very short. With a heavy heart, we're staying put

how straight fire does a band have to be in order to justify your tinnitus?

Fairly. They have to have guitar canons.

erm I own both their first 2 albums and the 12" (and the manifesto) why say i only heard them on spotify?

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/why-are-black-metal-fans-such-elitist-assholes

Because band like Liturgy, Deafheaven and Myrkur are thrust into our faces and we're told if we don't like them it's based on some kind of horrible, prejudiced elitism and not knowledge of the form that dates back to, you know, before last year.

However, at some point you need to just accept that the thing that you love may get more popular or have elements of it co-opted by other genres—and if you take a step back, that's part of what makes music or any other art form valuable to the culture.

"The culture." Yessss. Black metal is, traditionally, very concerned about the culture and integrating itself into it. That's why the word "misanthropy" figured into half of the early album titles in the genre.

"I don't understand metal at all, let me tell you metal guys why you're jerks."

lol that article is such garbage. p lol that somebody'd bother to write it and then somebody'd read it and go "this is good, let's publish this"

suspect it was more like "this is bad and will generate pageviews via its badness, let's publish this"

it is extraordinarily feeble though and I suspect the tone of wounded surprise to be disingenuous, which makes it worse

pretty sure i defended this album when it came out but with time and experience i realize that i don't even really get it. aesthethica was great though.

seeing these dudes tonight.

Mr. HHH, on the astronomically small chance that you read this, please understand that I genuinely love Liturgy, but goddamn it you make it so hard to defend you sometimes

https://kelvalhaal.bandcamp.com/releases

looool

i can't hate on music this weird tbf. it's definitely at risk of being shit but there's something compelling in there too

he's turned pretentiousness into a fine art!

He kind of reminds me of that Kula Shaker guy

he reminds me of an ilxor

i cannot help but like this

been thinking about hunter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib5UR5T6rTw

could use an update: Fuck Off the NPR Black Metal

Hah, I quite liked that. It's no Reign Array though.

Which other hipster metal threads can we bury Attila in?

the ones you started?

Aluk Todolo really need a thread of their own and Oranssi Pazuzu too but I think we missed the boat on that.

greg's solo album is...baffling MIDI wank?

always thought he was the straight role to hunter's freaked-out cyber-shaman thing but this is more unsuccessfully pretentious than anything hunter's released

his 'Mitrial Transmission' album from a few years ago is a favourite of mine, hypnotic processed gamelan pieces. not heard the new stuff

i haven't listened to the greg fox's solo album yet
it's not percussion?

From the review I read it's apparently MIDI triggered by drums. This is on my to do list but not high priority...

Mitrial Transmission is amazing.

Huh on the track here it sounds like the kick drum is triggering the synth bass, which always reminds me of playing Roland V-Drums in a music store in the late '90s.

https://gregfox.bandcamp.com/track/catching-an-l

The Ark Work still bannngs

yes.

um...holy shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dNmymSI8uQ

that's some really, really good Liturgy

i am now a huge fan of this ridiculous record (the ark work)

Brad! <3

(it's become one of my absolute favourites of the decade, what a vision)

New album is out aaaah

opener is fucking sick

The Nepalese lady who cleans my room just came in and slowly backed out again. Fair response: this is fucking mental.

*classroom, just to be clear.

Wooaaaah. Hajj just turned into a metal version of a Star Wars planet theme, then a misdial, then a march. Lol.

Lol.

Looooooool

I mean this is going to encourage loads of impressionistic drivel but that first track is like listening to the original Star Trek theme while being entombed in an iron maiden full of icicles.

EXACO!!!

The title-track is truly something, if you make it that far (which you should)

The sound of this is so crazy, but makes so much sense. It feels weirdly streamlined, even though it's all over the place.

I think back when we were talking White Ward someone was dissapointed that it didn't sound more like cosmic jazz / Ayler / Alice Coltrane, and I was like 'lol, that can't be done'. But here we kinda are? And it's amazing.

I guess I have no choice but to hear this now.

loving this so far. jesus christ

AOTY

This is amazing.

the climactic build of the title-track is like staring into a new form of art, or something

One would almost say, a micro genre :D

Head's spinning in the best way possible. Played it twice now and it somehow seems to be over in 20 minutes idk. What a glorious catharsis.

Finding it literally unlistenable rn, but my ears are kinda fried already and I have a headache, so I'll try another time. So far the glitchy Pro Tools edits are not appealing, that's an ugly & dated effect imo.

Jesus Jordan I so completely feel the opposite. Ew, but, my ears want to have sex with this record. The piano of Exaco I sounds crisp and so sincere to me. The glitchy stuff fits well in a prog-like, 'fooled you we're taking this song into an entirely different direction' kind of way. This is the opposite of ugly and dated for me personally. Crazy as it is it all fits together and paints a masterpiece imo.

i cannot wait to hear it but i'm also at a loss to describe what i even want from this band after the ark work

my answer to that admittedly pertinent question is simply 'more'

The glitches are at once awful and so so perfect. They felt a bit gimmicky on Ark Work, and now they feel like an essential part of the style.

lmao from the first track i love it

This one also benefits tremendously from being the correct length for a Liturgy album

as with the ark work i'm kinda loling through every song in a good way

This one also benefits tremendously from being the correct length for a Liturgy album

― Simon H., Wednesday, November 13, 2019 12:19 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Abso-fucking-lutely.

wonder if this album syncs up with end of evangelion

So glad they are still making music. Always seemed like the rest of the band was annoyed with Hunter in interviews and such but they always get back together and make these crazy great albums. id be fine if I never heard the term transcendental black metal ever again but I do love this. Also, Greg is a really good dude who just loves making music and art. New album rules. The first track and the title track are beyond excellent.

Brad otm, this feels equally of that show as The Inalienable Dreamless.

Greg is long gone!

wow. I should have really looked that up. I thought he was still in the band. I take that part back

all of the riffs in "pasaqalia" make me think of emo a lot

I take it all back. Different bass player too. Damn. Didn't realize all of the personnel changes but the music is still great.

much as i love the ark work for being perversely intractable (until you adjust and figure out it’s very catchy), pretty sure this is the populist (as much as it ever could be) masterpiece that also stretches their music way out

Rereading the Transcendental Black Metal manifesto, it's still so so annoying - and kinda racist towards Norwegians - but it honestly makes a lot of sense and explains a lot of what goes into these last few albums. Took ten years, but he delivered on his thoughts, lol.

Ok this is sounding much better with fresh ears

Love all the bell tones

lol this is bespoke lj fodder. Enjoying it so far.

Also it helped to skip the first track, that one is just a lot. Every other track has some kind of unexpected element, or at least a break in the assault.

Nah the first track is great too.

First track is huge, kicks it all off proper.

This record is fucking crazy

I think I love it

Awww no physical release till the end of February.

Definitely AOTY material here, at least for me

This record is zany as hell and probably their best, I'm on board. Dude's vocals are still terrible though, this should've been an instrumental record.

Gargantuan record. One might mistake the operatic flirtations and overcautious 'building up to a climax' for a flaw, but it's done so charmingly, so damn coy, while at the same time being integrated in their sound so very well. The opening notes leading up to the disarming nue of Exaco III and the beginning of the title song, man... Sincerity overrides pretentiousness, again and again. A masterpiece.

^^ my blurb for the AOTY albums poll rollout lol

this slaps

I need to get this.

i was a nonbeliever before this one but this is just really well done

Hunter is a woman

pic.twitter.com/xpaKA5lPy3

— Liturgy (@LITVRGY) May 12, 2020

wow <3 <3 <3

wow, beautiful ;_;

:)

knew this was coming but v glad to see how it's expressed :)

congrats to hunter

Rereading the Transcendental Black Metal manifesto, it's still so so annoying - and kinda racist towards Norwegians

― Frederik B, Wednesday, November 13, 2019 4:29 AM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

you think that's bad? check this vile shit out

http://www.uffdahhh.com/ole---lena-jokes.html

I'm sick of BM bands not getting called out for their anti-Norwegian racism

When is HAQQ being physically released? Still not available here in Germany it seems.

https://liturgy.bandcamp.com/album/origin-of-the-alimonies-2

aaaahhhh

AAAAHHHH

uhhh, wow.

astonishing, beautiful track

Wow

I'm discovering H.A.Q.Q. with great interest. Some people seem to imply there's a "scene" of those black metal records that the genre in the most unconventional directions. Do you have recommendations ?

When the fuck can I buy this on CD? An old man writes.

It seems available in the US, but not in Germany

December release date. It keeps slipping back.

Nabozo: There's no scene as such, the bands that push things forward tend to be on their own.

That said, if you like Liturgy but are not into black metal per se I'd say give Krallice a go, they're similarly overwhelming; Krallice don't have the eclectic influences/instrumentation but the guitars and bass are more technical, complex, and melodic. Years Past Matter is their best record but it might be best to start with the S/T debut.

Oranssi Pazuzu are another band who have crossover appeal, given that they're rooted in black metal but are kind of evil space-rock.

There's also 'A Northern Meadow' by Pyramids, which has almost exclusively sung vocals (rather than screamed/rasped) and is unusually nuanced and brings up conflicting moods, it manages to be somewhat unique despite sounding quite a lot like another band, Blut aus Nord (who are also good but kind of hard to get into in my experience).

Sorry if any of this comes across as condescending, I don't know how familiar you are with any of this stuff!

Relating to Krallice, I'd also really recommend guitarist Mick Barr's solo albums as Octis/Ocrilim and duo albums as Orthrelm as well--they're a bit more of a hybrid btw metal and other repetitive riff-based genres like minimalist classical music and post-hardcore

i have potentially many, many recommendations but it seems important instead to note that the other advance song off the new Liturgy is maybe even crazier than the first

It's a trap (-influenced intro)

thread. bow down

A year ago yesterday we performed Origin of the Alimonies in LA. We had organized a west coast Liturgy tour (of regular non-opera shows) around it - our first in years, with a new lineup - and I had decided to suddenly release H.A.Q.Q. at the beginning of the tour. We almost https://t.co/0eAdtyiqk9

— Liturgy (@LITVRGY) November 18, 2020

The new album is quite something.

it really is, eh

and now i'm onto the messiaen cover, which is...just...

Pre-ordered it on bandcamp but no sign of the complete mp3 album as of yet today 👀

Loving it so far. The advance tracks really benefit from being heard in context.

really loved that hunter twittwr thread. i’m def someone who def thought liturgy’s whole thing was too pretentious to bear but i’m glad i’ve since come around. the ark work deserved better from me and from most of the people who heard it

Same. I was thrown off by the vocals on Ark Work and probably dismissed it too quickly. I haven't really followed them since.

Origin is amazing though. I'm happy to finally connect with this band.

Performative snootiness: on.

Having just listened to the thing in its entirety, it’s a mildly competent late Romantic/early modernist classical pastiche for the most part, with a couple of jazzy/free improv signifiers thrown in for good measure. Oh and some screamo trap why because it look intersting. The glitchy and black metal bits feel tacked on and are paradoxically aimed at enhancing the project’s crossover appeal. The Messiaen geetar cover doesn’t add enough to the organ original to make me want to hear it again. Not is the would-be narrative/operatic ploy a point in its favour, since it only serves to cover up the lack of immanent structural momentum throughout. I suppose I’d be less annoyed if it wasn’t hailed as an auteur masterstroke by folks who otherwise don’t give a rat’s derrière about contemporary notated ‘art’ music and who are unlikely to engage with it beyond this one heartbreaking work of staggering genius whose vibratory strings will make your hypostatic pneuma swoon at the end of Bergsonian time like the quatuor of Jonny Greenwood fame.

Performative snootiness: off.

Other than that, it’s not bad. Too much esprit, not enough esprit critique aka 6/10.

I’mma show myself out.

2/10 title btw. Origin of the Alimoniae would have been more befitting.

I don't have enough of a background in contemporary notated art music to analyze it from that angle, but my upcoming Wire review does contain the phrase "makes up for in audacious energy what it lacks in compositional cohesion". So...

Its exuberant self-confidence (outright faith?) is a blessing for that very reason but also a curse insofar as it exudes a kind of smugness that is proper to the autodidact. Then again, guitarist #2 is the son of Kyle Gann (whom I don’t like very much ftr, although I wish he’d guided them kids towards an Ives or Nancarrow cover instead of Messiaen – his ubiquitous early material, to boot – ‘cause that at least would have felt like a real curve ball, although perhaps lacking in self-satisfied neo-theological TRANSCENDENCE).

Anyway, I think you mentioned this in another thread but I very much agree that this is only tangentially a ‘metal’ record and shouldn’t be approached as such.

And just to pre-empt lj’s rejoinders: Jute Gyte, whose output I haven’t sufficiently explored yet, has delivered *much* better and more unique takes on the intersection being plumbed here.

proper to the autodidact

I haven't got into Liturgy much at all and haven't heard this yet except for the two advance tracks but, wait, HHH studied with Tristan Murail.

I stand corrected. I suppose this is an indictment of myself, HHH and Murail.

I mean, if anything, it's the smugness of the Ivy League dilettante.xp

Now that I know, 'tis a good way of putting it.

Silver lining: maybe everyone who loves the new Liturgy will check out Tristan Murail's fabulous Portulan cycle, which Kairos released last year?

I only just connected the dots that HHH is the grandchild of a billionaire oil tycoon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunt.

Oh I remember listening to that Murail album last year. Thanks for the reminder. I'll get it out again.

Liturgy officially CANCELLED.

xp

I’ve been criticized in the past for being so wide-eyed, sincere and ambitious about creating new forms for conveying like heartfelt emotion

really?

i’m def someone who def thought liturgy’s whole thing was too pretentious to bear but i’m glad i’ve since come around.

I think the music is great, the pretension is fine, the sanctimony is unbearable.

And HHH's parents developed something called imago relationship therapy. O_o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imago_therapy

haha

lol

Wait, we’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?

This band are really good at one thing, and one thing only, and that's the "vibrant blast-beat chorale" thing. They have not at all figured out how to synthesize that one thing with any other thing.

The last minute of "The Fall Of SIHEMYN" is the thing that is good. I dislike everything else about this album

This band afaic has always been defined by the first two tracks of their first LP-- a terribly conceived, terribly executed a cappella "new music" intro, followed by a thrilling blast-beat chorale ("Pagan Dawn", by far their best track and one of my favourite songs in the world, seeing it live in 2011 was spectacular)

I cannot think of a worse opening track than the first track on The Ark Work, I hate it like I hate Eno's "The Drop" or the ninth Felt album

xps The discussion page on that article is killing me.

What a mess. Not only is it entirely unformatted, it seems to be a paper someone wrote in enthusiastic support of Imago (perhaps even at the behest of Imago), cherry-picking details from studies that support Imago without once referencing any criticisms.

;_;

"Generation" remains one of my very favorite rock songs

the poo_er of the angryman ffs

god bless you, ever rong

this is less engaging than haqq and less formally interesting than the ark work but i still enjoy it. not sure the messiaen version works

yeah it's not as good as the previous two, but still good, basically

Yeah the Messiaen cover doesn't ruin it but doesn't match up to the original and takes up too much of the runtime. The opening run of tracks is phenomenal, though.

Is this album really not leagues better than their previous couple? I clicked with it right away upon hearing it, like to the point where I thought it was one of the best albums of the year in the past three weeks. It's definitely too short, kinda feels like the first act of a three act opera, with the Messiaen acting like the vorspiel

Yeah, but WHAT a Bushwick landlord!

what?

the problem is that it SOUNDS like it was made by a bushwick landlord

― here 1st (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 22 March 2023 16:14 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Anyway, this new album is awesome

Have an interview: https://www.thefader.com/2023/03/23/liturgy-the-fader-interview-feature

Someone sent me a meme that said "What kind of trans girl are you?" and there were sixteen options and one of them was just "Rhombic Dodecahedron" and I was like "What is that even supposed to mean" and then someone told me Liturgy had a new EP out and I was all "Ohhhh, yeahhhhh, rhombic dodecahedron, got it." Anyway. The new one is a rerecording of the Immortal Life EP.

I'm not sure which of the sixteen I fall under. I guess I might qualify as "depressed and dysphoric" except that I'm not actually dysphoric.