Liturgy
Aesthethica


4.5
superb

Review

by Motoi USER (2 Reviews)
April 7th, 2013 | 14 replies


Release Date: 2011 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Intense, satisfying black metal from Brooklyn.

Traditional black metal, mostly Norwegian, has ignorance encoded into its DNA. The genre is notorious for its themes of racial and religious hatred along with extreme societal discontent and its traditionally undesirable musical tenants including murky, sordid production. With this in mind, it’s easy to see why Liturgy has become so reviled by the black metal community. Hailing from Brooklyn, the band explores Christian themes such as redemption. The album has clean production and you won’t see any of the members wearing corpse paint or burning churches. It seems the only Black thing about Liturgy is the music, and in an insular culture such as Black Metal, that’s not enough.

In terms of musical merit, it doesn’t really matter. Whether black metal fans are happy about it or not, Aesthethica is an album that shows that regardless of the philosophy behind the band, these guys are seriously talented. Between Hunter-Hunt Hendrix’s desperate, howling vocals and Greg Fox’s perfectly synchronous drumming, there is some top-notch musicianship on display here. There’s plenty of variety throughout the tracks - Returner is my personal favorite. It goes from a choppy, rough beginning with sudden starts and stops into a triumphant, exhilarating climax that I would almost call groovy. The following track, Generation, is a hypnotic seven minute Goliath that comes across as equally or more intense as the other, faster songs. On Aesthethica, you get a variety of sounds, but lulls are rare and the album is better for it.

You can call it pretentious, but you cannot deny that Aesthethica is everything the average metal listener wants - a visceral, dizzying, unrelenting, and really satisfying bit of music.


user ratings (484)
3.2
good
other reviews of this album
1 of
  • Dakota West Foss STAFF (3.5)
    When horrible, horrible people make good music....

    rmill3r (3.5)
    Pretentious? Not trve fucking kvlt? Maybe. But still simultaneously beautiful and relentle...

    DarkNoctus (2)
    an album that tries too hard and as a result collapses under its own weight....

    Subrick (2)
    Black Metal: Art School Edition...

  • Otaku (5)
    Liturgy basically singlehandedly re-defined black metal....



Comments:Add a Comment 
CaptainHadouken
April 7th 2013


1963 Comments


Sooooo why is this a 4.5?

demigod!
April 7th 2013


49609 Comments


So i hear this is really boring!


thumbcrusher
April 7th 2013


3790 Comments


i for one did not find everything i wanted from music on this album

MoosechriS
April 7th 2013


6353 Comments


You can call it pretentious, but you cannot deny that Aesthethica is everything the average metal listener wants - a visceral, dizzying, unrelenting, and really satisfying bit of music.

yes i will call it pretentious, but i could never call it satisfying or entertaining or let alone average. It's just an example of a bunch of hipsters trying to gain notoriety by spouting bullshit because the music they produce is fetid wank

Wolfhorde
April 7th 2013


15387 Comments

Album Rating: 1.5

"really satisfying"

Of course (the proverbial) he can, satisfaction is a subjective measure.

Wizard
April 7th 2013


20510 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Traditional black metal, mostly Norwegian, has ignorance encoded into its DNA. The genre is notorious for its themes of racial and religious hatred along with extreme societal discontent and its traditionally undesirable musical tenants including murky, sordid production. With this in mind, it’s easy to see why Liturgy has become so reviled by the black metal community. Hailing from Brooklyn, the band explores Christian themes such as redemption. The album has clean production and you won’t see any of the members wearing corpse paint or burning churches. It seems the only Black thing about Liturgy is the music, and in an insular culture such as Black Metal, that’s not enough.



Oh the irony in this statement.



Besides that, I actually negged this for being a horribly written review. WHY IS THIS A 4.5? You haven't answered that yet. The only thing you've done is ranted about bm in general.

BigPleb
April 7th 2013


65784 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

I heard this is colourful bm.

Wizard
April 7th 2013


20510 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

I do like Renihilation quite a bit but this is just more or less the same with less attention payed to atmosphere and more to how brutal they can sync up their tremolos with hyper blasts.

idkpokeit
April 7th 2013


432 Comments


Oh right because Liturgy is the first and only bm band to not wear corpse paint and all Norwegians are ignorant, racist, nazi churchburners who wear spiked armbands all day and sacrifice goats for breakfast.

thumbcrusher
April 7th 2013


3790 Comments


you got it!

shepaintedfire
April 7th 2013


63 Comments


sux

bigguytoo9
April 7th 2013


1412 Comments

Album Rating: 1.0

How could anyone rate this higher then maybe a 1.5/2?? p.s. Hunter Hunt Hendrix is a fucking clown. His little "paper" on Black Metal is the most pretentious thing ive read in ages.

Motoi
April 8th 2013


1 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

"Oh right because Liturgy is the first and only bm band to not wear corpse paint and all Norwegians are ignorant, racist, nazi churchburners who wear spiked armbands all day and sacrifice goats for breakfast."



I didn't say that.

zaruyache
April 9th 2013


27408 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

You can call it pretentious, but you cannot deny that Aesthethica is everything the average metal listener wants - a visceral, dizzying, unrelenting, and really satisfying bit of music.



Too bad they do all of those things in a totally annoying and utterly unsatisfying way, though, or I might have had to agree with you. Plenty of "modern" black metal groups use the same clean recording styles of this band, protest the use of corpse paint, and are applauded by the BM community for their work. This band is just a more annoying, less directioned Krallice.



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