“High Gold,” the lead track off Liturgy’s new album “Aesthethica,” begins with the sort of sound experimentation that has marked black metal ever since Burzum started making albums. The weird pitter patter of tones that trickle out of the speakers is nothing new to the genre. Neither are the blast beats, banshee shrieks and tremolo-picked guitar squalls that follow. What is new to the genre is that the progressions and snatches of melody that spill out of the track sound nothing like black metal. It’s off putting at first, until you start to analyze the song through the lens of free jazz, or even math rock and screamo, then it begins to make sense. Replace the guitars with saxophones and you could have a latter day John Coltrane track on your hands. Or don’t, and you have something that rubs elbows with Lightening Bolt on its way to Ulver’s “Nattens Madrigal - Aatte Hymne Til Ulven I Manden.” In other words, don’t go into this expecting a typical black metal record, even by USBM standards, instead prepare yourself for a hodgepodge of noise that blends musical strains as variant as classical, jazz, drone, minimalism, sludge rock, prog, IDM and chant. Do that and you will be ready to take on the bacchanalian tour de force that is “Aesthethica.”I have honestly never heard an album quite like this. It is marked by climaxes of unbridled joy and high drama, in between valleys of hypnotic pummeling, yet it never sounds forced or too disparate, as it blends together so many divergent influences and emotions. It’s sort of like the rantings of an unmedicated bi-polar schizophrenic that actually not only makes sense, but is enlightening even.
Liturgy began making a name for themselves a couple of years ago in the wake of their incredible debut album "Renihilation." The Brooklyn quartet seemingly came out of nowhere and created one of the most successful boundary-pushing black metal albums in the genre's history. I say successful, because rather than add strings and synthesizers like Emperor did to create "symphonic black metal" or graft tremolo guitar and blast beats onto post-rock song structures as many USBM bands have (causing some to purists to cry foul), or add industrial and psych-rock influences to create a hybrid form of heavy music via Nachtmystium and Twilight, Liturgy have remained fairly true to the traditional black metal template. What they did within that template was something else entirely. In reviewing "Renihilation" I wrote that "with a compositional style more suited to Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, modal jazz and 20th Century minimalism, than black metal, Liturgy astonishes. The band provokes intellectually, plays with an emotional intensity that an emo kid would cut himself for, and blasts grim with the full frosty fury of the most blacked metal." The same could be said for "Anesthethica," but as one would hope, there is an evolution in sound and a honing of skills present that makes this record superior, which is no small feat.
What Liturgy does better than anyone else, and I mean anyone, is maintain absolute control over what sounds like an eschatological whirlwind. These guys play so intensely - so entirely unhinged - while sustaining an air-tight precision throughout that they seem to defy the laws of physics. Even after listening to this record repeatedly, I still half expect some of these tracks to collapse under the weight of themselves into a muddled mess, but they never do. Listen to "Glory Bronze" with all it's ascending and descending themes whipping by you at a million miles an hour and you will be transformed, as if you just stared into the abyss at the end of all things and lived to tell. It is almost too intense, both physically and emotionally. It's also played with a skill far beyond most musicians' pay grade, yet it never sounds clinical, as so many gifted technical players do, rather the opposite is the case; it sounds like these guys are playing as if their very lives depended on it.
The only real breather comes with the group's welcome forays into math and sludge rock on instrumentals "Generation" and "Veins Of God." Initially both songs seem like a curve balls, but in time they reveal themselves as the record's anchors, grounding it in light of the unbound nature of the rest of the album. And, because I can't resist mentioning all of these bands in the same breath, imagine what it would sound like if "Spine Of God"-era Monster Magnet, High On Fire and Slint got together and formed a supergroup to record a 12", and it was a supergroup effort that actually exceeded its expectations for once. Such a flight of fancy will give you an idea of how incredible each of these songs are.
The rest of the album could easily be mistaken for the work of an ecstatic. Not surprisingly, Liturgy has been described as transcendental, but their music somehow makes the word transcendental impotent. The Master Musicians of Jourjouka and the Whirling Dervishes have nothing on these guys. This is extreme transcendentalism, and the word "extreme" is a necessary qualifier. This is simply unlike anything you have ever heard. That isn't hyperbole. Sonically this band is as extreme as it gets, yet it is far removed from the brutality or ugliness that is often associated with extreme music, instead it is, well, kind of beautiful. Listen to "Sun Of Light," with it's minimalist refrain that wouldn't sound alien to a Steve Reich or Philip Glass composition that suddenly explodes like a supernova into a cacophony of snare rolls, blast beats and screeches while the same refrain plays over and over and you cannot help but find yourself far removed from your mundane surroundings.
Ultimately, as with all truly transcendental experiences, words fail and this review is nothing but a pale approximation to this record, more so than what is typically inherent in the relationship between the written word and music itself. This an album unlike any other, and I know I have said that in various ways throughout this review, but it is true as this is utterly alien, utterly beautiful and utterly brilliant. From a purely musical standpoint this is the best goddamned thing I have heard all year, and I highly doubt that will change over the next seven months. "Aesthethica" is a landmark album that defies categorization and will reward serious listeners of all stripes willing to explore its heights and depths. And frankly everything I just said doesn't quite do it justice.
"Returner"
LITURGY // RETURNER from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.
"Veins Of God"
"Glory Bronze"
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