Friday, May 13, 2011

Liturgy - Aesthetica (Thrill Jockey, 2011)

The first time I heard of Liturgy was while hanging up flyers for a show they were playing. Musicians around town that I respect couldn't believe that they were playing a house show down the street. I couldn't believe, later that night, that I was killing a joint with them upstairs in a bedroom above one of the most intense musical experiences I have ever experienced. They played with fire and knew how to keep it going. That night, we coined the phrase “killing the horse” for getting high because it was mentioned that some of us smoke enough weed to kill a horse. That being said, their last album, Renihilation, became an obsession of mine.

This new album, Aesthetica, brings me to a place where my ears have to work to hear all of the amazing sounds they're creating because I don't want to miss anything. I've seen them play a few of these songs live and one in particular stuck with me. I searched the internet-theory to its edge to find the song and couldn't until recently because it is on this new album. “Veins of God” is one of the last songs, a transcendental stoner metal song played by a Brooklyn black metal band, truly transforming and fulfilling the foreshadowed expectations by the album's title.

They venture before with songs of incredible speed, parts of songs involving their token vocal harmonization and melodies and no other instruments, and dive to the heaviest note with weight. They create sounds that you want to hear, experimenting with sophisticated variety and raw honesty. It makes your mind work in a way that pleases itself, true aesthetic of varying rhythms with time and space blurring from speed.

It seems that getting lost in this album is the way to find what you like about it. Everything on Aesthetica is proper to play while starting a fire, watching one burn down everything, or lighting the flame to kill the horse. Keyword: Experiment.

--Oliver Kelly

Get Aesthetica Here

Or: Aesthethica (Bonus Track Version) - Liturgy

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