"Aesthethica" by Liturgy [Record Review]
It’s safe to say that Aesthethica won’t be foisted into the pantheon of mighty, timeless metal albums. The very least that can be said about Aesthethica is that it’s a masterfully played and gloriously refreshing metal album. But, there is a little more to it than that. Hunter Hunt-Hendrix is dead set on creating a new context for American black metal; he’s termed it “Transcendental Black Metal.” In a nutshell, he has set out to overcome what he sees as the nihilistic, ‘depraved’ orientations of thrash, death, and black metal, and establish a creative basis and legitimacy for affirmative and thematically courageous “black” metal. Hunt-Hendrix formally expounded upon this in a paper that he presented at the first Black Metal Theory Symposium. Whether or not his theses and positions hold water has been rendered nearly irrelevant by Aesthethica.
Because Hunt-Hendrix set pen to paper and demonstrated that he at least thought about what he wanted to accomplish by creating Aesthethica, there’s bound to be at least a little argumentation about whether or not Liturgy is a genuine black metal band. There are also bound to be people who flat out hate these guys for claiming to have anything to do with black metal at all. No one’s going to spin this disc and feel demons breathing down their neck. Sorry.
With Aesthethica, Liturgy crossed into intriguing territory at a particularly odd time. While bands across a swath of musical genres are adopting darker perspectives and incorporating occult aesthetics into their work, Liturgy screeches onto the scene sounding pretty much like black metal. They’ve got monstrous, thrashing, speed-kicked drums and tremolo picked, wonderfully counterpointed guitar parts. They’ve also laid down some highly repetitive tracks peppered with intricacies that pop out from almost every measure. You can listen to Aesthethica without feeling put upon to entertain someone else’s satanic daydreams or tortured by incessantly double-kicked doomsday. Liturgy made an uplifting, bad-ass metal album, and they did it with a ton of skill.
Much like Nirvana brought Beatles hooks to garage punk, Liturgy spiked the black metal with a little Smashing Pumpkins. Now you can’t say Billy Corgan never did anything good for you. If you don’t hear it in the snare swells, maybe you’ll catch it in the duplexed guitar licks; if you don’t hear it in “Generations,” then go and play the intro to “Silverfuck” on the Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, over and over again. But damn if Liturgy didn’t go and make some catchy metal that makes you feel happy to be able to laugh at their choral chanting that sounds like it’s sung by guys who’ve wasted their vocal chords by screaming night after night. Just when it seemed like everything in the world was generally going to hell, Liturgy went and made you feel good.
If you like this album at all, you'll probably like it a lot. It’s also likely that you’ll feel guilty for playing it over and over again. And when you pick up the lyrics and realize that one of the best tracks on the album, “Red Crown,” contains the lines, “Rub the red crown … I am an army of pulses, my hard skin is a flute,” you’re going feel really silly. Well, chalk it up to Hunter Hunt-Hendrix who clearly does not take himself too seriously. Thankfully, Liturgy takes their music seriously enough to endure some disdain for appropriating black metal, and has the dedication and discipline necessary to become and maintain themselves as pretty amazing musicians.
Now that Liturgy has accomplished what Hunt-Hendrix set out to do, they can take on the task of making an album that’s unburdened by over-conceptualization. With Aesthethica, Liturgy has found their voice. Hopefully, they’ll develop a healthy fan base, otherwise there are just going to be scattered, small groups of guys who regularly huddle around bongs to listen to Aesthethica and, in their isolation, can only squint their eyes, bare their teeth and shake their fists, screaming “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Dude.
Liturgy: [thrilljockey website]
