Liturgy will release their 2xLP The Ark Work on March 23/24th via Thrill Jockey Records. Reported to be the most complete expression of the group’s Transcendental Black Metal aesthetic, the theories of which are outlined by the band’s songwriter and “conceptual architect” Hunter Hunt-Hendrix in his text, “Transcendental Black Metal: A Vision of Apocalyptic Humanism”, The Ark Work confidently pushes the “extreme” genre into more solar realms through Liturgy’s brave reappraisal of it. Proposing to move Black Metal from it’s pure, but dead “Hyperborean” state, Hunt-Hendrix calls for a music that is a ““No” to the entire array of Negations” that have long populated Northern European art and philosophy, offering, instead, an affirmative and transcendental American musical form that celebrates “chaos, frenzy and ecstasy”.
If “Quetzalcoatl” is any indication, on The Ark Work Liturgy continues to successfully sublimate the structures and techniques of Black Metal deep into their music, while pushing the genre even further into strange new territories. Hunt-Hendrix has much to say in his treatise about the rigidity of the Blast Beat, calling for a more elastic “Burst Beat”, and this can be heard slipping and sliding thru the track. Initially, though, the cut’s electronic beat seems to bear more of a resemblance to techno; but, when coupled with a revolving circus melody, and feverish lyrical delivery, “Quetzalcoatl” takes on a form that sounds more like synth-punk. When the track does finally gain it’s orchestral cohesion, it explodes though the The Haptic Void on soaring strings, ecstatic vocals, and rapid fire drum shot aimed straight for the solar heights.
