The world does not need another black metal band but the guys from Liturgy don’t care. This is fine by me as this is one of the best albums in the genre for a long time. Consolidating the ground won via their Immortal Life EP, the group has expanded in size and in scope. Instead of focussing on a scary aesthetic and not coming up with decent music, they have gone the opposite route of 99% of most modern black metal groups and actually made music worth listening to.
Starting softly with a short untitled track, Liturgy lured me into a false sense of security and as such the shattering whirlwind of “Pagan Dawn” hit doubly hard. Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s vocals are a pained howl, incoherent screams that sound more like the snarls of beast being devoured than anything. The inclusion of a drummer gives the music a more visceral edge, Greg Fox hits the skins like a force of nature. This orientates the music towards the more traditional ground of black metal but Hendrix’s off-kilter approach to the genre prevents Liturgy from becoming another forgettable addition to the genre’s ranks.
It is a bit of critical stereotype for me to compare the sound of the band to a winter wind but Liturgy do manage to make the temperature drop. The twin guitars of Hendrix and Bernard Gann are like the bracing gusts of frigid air that whip through the northern fringes of civilisation. Embodying this freezing mood is “Beyond the Magic Forest,” which may be a bit of a wimpy title but the music could never be described as such. The grinding drums going from a funereal pulse to a frenzied blast beat drive the music into the back of my skull.
Interspersed throughout the album are a number of brief untitled pieces (like the one that opens the album) where the group change tact completely and focus on more ambient sounds. These tracks are reminiscent of prison-era Burzum and Ulver’s experimentations outside of black metal. The long vocal drones with electronic accompaniment add a ritualistic air to Renihilation and provide a fitting contrast to the harsher black metal tracks, reinforcing their already formidable presence.
The final two tracks form a one-two punch that will send any listener down for the count; “Behind the Void” and the title track combined make some of the best black metal to cross my path recently. While Wolves in the Throne Room would be the closest point of reference for Liturgy, in this case the wolves found on Renihilation are feral and hungry. Liturgy are on to something special here, reinvigorating a sound that has been abused and gentrified over the last decade into something resembling its former glory.
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