Liturgy at Red 7 [Show Preview]

Liturgy

Liturgy
Thrusday, July 28
Red 7 (611 E. 7th St.)
9pm, $10-12
[info] | [tickets]

More than two months since the release of the second full length album from Liturgy, Aesthethica has been greeted with enthusiastic initial reviews, including Austinist’s, and is now being hailed as one of this year’s most outstanding records by publications ranging from musically erudite The Quietus to more mainstream and rarely metal-friendly Pitchfork. Liturgy has been the target of mostly juvenile criticism for being “hipster metal” and betrayers of the true spirit of black metal. Whatever issues one might have about guys who perform metal while wearing street clothes and rejecting depravity, it would be difficult to argue that Liturgy is not one of the most exceptionally talented metal bands to emerge over the last couple of years. They are transcending traditional boundaries of metal and developing a reputation for melting faces everywhere they go.

Liturgy’s agenda has nothing to do with conforming to ubiquitous metal trappings. The band’s founder, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, has taken an explicit stance against bowing to common metal tribalism and aesthetic conventions. In the context of black metal, his ethical position is fairly extreme. He recognizes that hate mongering and doomsaying aren’t exactly new tropes to the genre, and that favoring glorious music and affirmative thematic orientations are more eccentric and courageous artistic positions from which to build upon traditional black metal.

The philosophical underpinnings of Liturgy are practically irrelevant when their music is boiled down to its essential characteristics. It is exceptionally well-composed (Hunt-Hendrix studied composition with avant-garde composer Tristan Murial at Columbia University), unique metal performed by uncommonly talented musicians. They circumvent the confines of traditional metal and extend the most extreme range of the indie music spectrum. Given the strength of Aesthethica and their high velocity of musical development over a relatively short time, Liturgy is poised to make tremendous waves with their third full length album, which is now in progress. If you like metal, hard rock or witnessing exceptionally skilled musicians set new standards of excellence in a long-established, common genre, you definitely should not sleep on this show.

A couple of promising local metal bands are slated to open for Liturgy. Newcomers Whore of Bethlehem will kick things off with what should be a strong death metal set, followed by Bat Castle, who are receiving some deserved attention for their diversely influenced metal that interweaves both melodic and crushing thrash metal with threads of other hard rock genres.

Liturgy: [Official]
Bat Castle: [Official]
Whore of Bethlehem: [Facebook]