Review Summary: The sonic mold of a clergy hammered by the fist of god.
Litourgiya is an album spawned from religious tensions, and its sounds revel in this factor. Between the innocent chimes of bells, monotone Slavic chanting and ferocious black metal rasps, this album feels blasphemous. One interesting point to make note of is how these sounds don't conflict but they don't quite meld-it seems as if the contentedness of one is being brutally torn by the other. Which would further explain its blasphemous sound-on one hand it sounds quaint and fragile, as if gods presence were looming all around, yet on the other it sounds beastly and lacking in respite. For example "Yekteniya 1" is bombarded by blistering tremolos and chaotic shrieks, but halted by a deep, ominous church chant.
Normally a sound like this would be sleep inducing, but Batushka places these sounds so perfectly. They are never drawn out for longer then they should, threatening to wear down on its black metal origins. I find this is a problem many atmospheric/folk black metal bands find issue with-striking a balance between the two styles, making it even more impressive that on their first effort they have struck the perfect in between. For example "Yekteniya 5" is absolutely breakneck with flourishing blast beats that are probably the strongest off this whole album, yet the chants still provide a starkly contrasting harmony that, while the two styles do clash, they do so in a way that sounds like a disparaging war rather than a misuse of styles.
The only plausible weakness of this album is that the songs aren't entirely distinguished, aside from Yekteniya (which means litany, by the way) 1, 2, 5, and 6. The album is haunting and harrowing, yet its overall nature does cause it to drone on just slightly. This is more so attributed however to the lullaby like effect of the choirs and how the tracks blend together rather than boredom, because to call this album boring would be quite an insult. This album is a towering wall of sound, ever-present and all powerful, each sound being a brick in the tower, completing the masterwork. It is for this reason the album works better as a whole, and you really have to listen from beginning to end to fully absorb it's catastrophic sound.
Overall, this album is burgeoning with an overall sense of anger, and one righteously so-Eastern Europe is heavily ruled by religion. The way the church hymns and unhallowed shrieks constantly claw at each other creates a sort of crusade. A dark, ugly, unforgiving crusade. With chiming bells, distraught melodies and a fiery anger spit forth at all deities, only Batushka can create an album as cold and desolate yet so rampant as Litourgiya. This is the voice of an album against religion. An album against god.
