Liturgy
Black metal on Thrill Jockey, the trusted label of neat post-rock bands such as Tortoise or Sea & Cake? But of course, if it’s the “transcendental ecstasy” of Liturgy we’re talking about. Because that’s how Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (could this amazing name possibly be made up?), a student of American romanticism and head of the Brooklyn-based twenty-something quartet, describes the mental state he aims to evoke with his music. Even if this extreme genre is approached here slightly more unconventionally, almost poetically – after all, Hunt-Hendrix got into black metal during high school through the internet (!) and initially made solo recordings with a four-track; a slightly different take on bedroom recording then – debut album “Renihilation” (2009, released on 20 Buck Spin) still has everything the die-hard fan wants: screaming and grunting vocals, machine gun-style drumming, singing walls of guitars and, above all, wonderfully clichéd song titles, such as “Mysterium”, “Pagan Dawn” or “Ecstatic Rite”.
