it's sort of a metal album
― Treeship, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 02:33 (nine years ago) link
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.
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 02:34 (nine years ago) link
this came up after reign array last time through. you're welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcTlFxkmDhk
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 02:37 (nine years ago) link
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.
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 02:38 (nine years ago) link
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
― Treeship, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 02:40 (nine years ago) link
the vocals are starting to remind me of Liars, which is fine by me
― Simon H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 03:14 (nine years ago) link
he sounds kinda like panda bear
― Treeship, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 03:16 (nine years ago) link
otm, was thinking the same thing earlier on. but in a bad way.
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 03:34 (nine years ago) link
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?
― The Complainte of Ray Tabano, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 04:26 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 19:24 (nine years ago) link
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
― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 20:19 (nine years ago) link
uh you guys what is this
― gybe horses (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, 18 March 2015 15:48 (nine years ago) link
he is trying to transcend the haptic void duh
http://www.radicalmatters.com/metasound/pdf/Hideous.Gnosis.Black.Metal.Theory.Symposium.I.pdf
― primal, intuitive, and relatively unmediated (Treeship), Wednesday, 18 March 2015 16:03 (nine years ago) link
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 shirt3) i need to check out guardian alien bc i'm not sure i care about this band but he was an incredible drummer
― groundless round (La Lechera), Wednesday, 18 March 2015 16:06 (nine years ago) link
no offense intended at other metal drummers -- they are probably v healthy
― groundless round (La Lechera), Wednesday, 18 March 2015 16:07 (nine years ago) link
He's amazing. Definitely check out his work with Guardian Alien and Zs.
― EZ Snappin, Wednesday, 18 March 2015 16:12 (nine years ago) link
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
― Reader, I murder dem (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 18 March 2015 16:17 (nine years ago) link
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
― lil urbane (Jordan), Wednesday, 18 March 2015 17:51 (nine years ago) link
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.
― EZ Snappin, Thursday, 9 April 2015 14:20 (nine years ago) link
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
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 9 April 2015 14:28 (nine years ago) link
They should love Greg! Everyone should love Greg. Very nice guy, and a joy to watch and hear.
― EZ Snappin, Thursday, 9 April 2015 14:29 (nine years ago) link
i just impulse bought a ticket to the show fridayi 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
― groundless round (La Lechera), Thursday, 9 April 2015 15:46 (nine years ago) link
Yes! Seeing Liturgy and Horse Lords on a double bill is a rad idea
― the tune was space, Thursday, 9 April 2015 16:50 (nine years ago) link
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.
― EZ Snappin, Thursday, 9 April 2015 17:01 (nine years ago) link
Hm, that might be worth a trip to Montreal.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Thursday, 9 April 2015 17:02 (nine years ago) link
Liturgy, Horse Lords, and Sannhet sounds very exhausting.
I'm looking forward to catching them with Lightning Bolt in a few weeks!
― Tomás Piñon (Ryan), Thursday, 9 April 2015 17:11 (nine years ago) link
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
― groundless round (La Lechera), Thursday, 9 April 2015 17:21 (nine years ago) link
Sund4r I'll be at that showGreg is amazing, Guardian Alien is amazing
― got a long list of ilxors (fgti), Thursday, 9 April 2015 17:28 (nine years ago) link
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.
― EZ Snappin, Thursday, 9 April 2015 17:36 (nine years ago) link
Listening to Kel Valhaal for the first time
:D
― twunty fifteen (imago), Wednesday, 7 October 2015 21:57 (eight years ago) link
all of metal heard this song and cried and cried
― twunty fifteen (imago), Wednesday, 7 October 2015 21:58 (eight years ago) link
just the best sort of annoying
― twunty fifteen (imago), Wednesday, 7 October 2015 22:00 (eight years ago) link
Why would metal cry at what sounds like a CD of In The Nursery skipping?
― jimmy falloff (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Thursday, 8 October 2015 03:44 (eight years ago) link
seriously
― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, 8 October 2015 05:43 (eight years ago) link
this album is brilliant. 'reign array' and 'follow II' the highights but it all makes sense to me.
― twunty fifteen (imago), Thursday, 8 October 2015 09:10 (eight years ago) link
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
― these are my pincers and if you don't like them I have udders (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 8 October 2015 09:11 (eight years ago) link
yer right, but the narrative is so hard to escape
― twunty fifteen (imago), Thursday, 8 October 2015 09:15 (eight years ago) link
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.
― ultros ultros-ghali, Thursday, 8 October 2015 19:54 (eight years ago) link
Their live show is face-meltingly loud, almost as loud as Melt-Banana
― I Am Curious (Dolezal) (DJP), Thursday, 8 October 2015 19:55 (eight years ago) link
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
― twunty fifteen (imago), Thursday, 8 October 2015 19:59 (eight years ago) link
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
― twunty fifteen (imago), Saturday, 17 October 2015 21:40 (eight years ago) link
Really, dude? Really?!
― si monvmentvm reqvires, pvmpkin spice (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Saturday, 17 October 2015 22:51 (eight years ago) link
― I Am Curious (Dolezal) (DJP), Thursday, October 8, 2015 12:55 PM (1 week ago)
That was not my experience.
― sarahell, Saturday, 17 October 2015 23:12 (eight years ago) link
Mine either (although when I saw them they were just two dudes).
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Saturday, 17 October 2015 23:23 (eight years ago) link
Yeah really. What is the beef?
― twunty fifteen (imago), Sunday, 18 October 2015 10:59 (eight years ago) link
No beef! I just don't find it, uh, oneiric.
― si monvmentvm reqvires, pvmpkin spice (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Sunday, 18 October 2015 11:26 (eight years ago) link
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.
― si monvmentvm reqvires, pvmpkin spice (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Sunday, 18 October 2015 11:31 (eight years ago) link
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.
― ultros ultros-ghali, Sunday, 18 October 2015 12:14 (eight years ago) link
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)
― twunty fifteen (imago), Sunday, 18 October 2015 13:43 (eight years ago) link
also it is bad
― adam, Sunday, 18 October 2015 14:03 (eight years ago) link
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...
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, 21 November 2020 01:21 (three years ago) link
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).
― pomenitul, Saturday, 21 November 2020 01:31 (three years ago) link
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.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 21 November 2020 01:34 (three years ago) link
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.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 21 November 2020 01:45 (three years ago) link
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.
― actually-very-convincing (Sund4r), Saturday, 21 November 2020 02:02 (three years ago) link
I stand corrected. I suppose this is an indictment of myself, HHH and Murail.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 21 November 2020 02:03 (three years ago) link
I mean, if anything, it's the smugness of the Ivy League dilettante.xp
― actually-very-convincing (Sund4r), Saturday, 21 November 2020 02:03 (three years ago) link
Now that I know, 'tis a good way of putting it.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 21 November 2020 02:04 (three years ago) link
Silver lining: maybe everyone who loves the new Liturgy will check out Tristan Murail's fabulous Portulan cycle, which Kairos released last year?
― pomenitul, Saturday, 21 November 2020 02:10 (three years ago) link
I only just connected the dots that HHH is the grandchild of a billionaire oil tycoon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Hunt.
― actually-very-convincing (Sund4r), Saturday, 21 November 2020 03:19 (three years ago) link
Oh I remember listening to that Murail album last year. Thanks for the reminder. I'll get it out again.
― actually-very-convincing (Sund4r), Saturday, 21 November 2020 03:22 (three years ago) link
Liturgy officially CANCELLED.xp
― pomenitul, Saturday, 21 November 2020 03:26 (three years ago) link
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?
― CRVTCHΞS (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 21 November 2020 04:15 (three years ago) link
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.
― CRVTCHΞS (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 21 November 2020 04:18 (three years ago) link
And HHH's parents developed something called imago relationship therapy. O_o
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imago_therapy
― jmm, Saturday, 21 November 2020 05:38 (three years ago) link
haha
― A Scampo Darkly (Le Bateau Ivre), Saturday, 21 November 2020 13:42 (three years ago) link
lol
― pomenitul, Saturday, 21 November 2020 14:36 (three years ago) link
Wait, we’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?
― pomenitul, Saturday, 21 November 2020 15:12 (three years ago) link
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
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 21 November 2020 15:57 (three years ago) link
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.
― jmm, Saturday, 21 November 2020 17:40 (three years ago) link
;_;
― imago, Saturday, 21 November 2020 21:37 (three years ago) link
"Generation" remains one of my very favorite rock songs
― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Saturday, 21 November 2020 23:26 (three years ago) link
the poo_er of the angryman ffs
― Bandscamp Fryday (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 21 November 2020 23:35 (three years ago) link
god bless you, ever rong
― Bandscamp Fryday (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 21 November 2020 23:36 (three years ago) link
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
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Saturday, 19 December 2020 16:40 (three years ago) link
yeah it's not as good as the previous two, but still good, basically
― imago, Saturday, 19 December 2020 17:25 (three years ago) link
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.
― your passion oozzes from the (ultros ultros-ghali), Saturday, 19 December 2020 18:47 (three years ago) link
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
― Iannis Xenakis double fisting Cutty Sark (Tom Violence), Saturday, 19 December 2020 23:59 (three years ago) link
Yeah, but WHAT a Bushwick landlord!
― imago, Friday, 24 March 2023 12:29 (one year ago) link
what?
― fpsa, Friday, 24 March 2023 16:10 (one year ago) link
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
― imago, Friday, 24 March 2023 16:14 (one year ago) link
Anyway, this new album is awesome
Have an interview: https://www.thefader.com/2023/03/23/liturgy-the-fader-interview-feature
― imago, Friday, 24 March 2023 16:15 (one year ago) link