Liturgy

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.

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