Liturgy

The new album is quite something.

it really is, eh

and now i'm onto the messiaen cover, which is...just...

Pre-ordered it on bandcamp but no sign of the complete mp3 album as of yet today 👀

Loving it so far. The advance tracks really benefit from being heard in context.

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