93696 - Liturgy: Review
Liturgy
is an experimental black metal project from New York who have long been controversial for their style among black metal fans. The peak of that controversy surrounded a manifesto published by lead singer Haele Raveena Hunt-Hendrix declaring the band's style "transcendental black metal." 93696 is the band's 6th album following 2020's Origin Of The Alimonies and dabbles in various philosophies the band has explored on previous albums.
Review by Lav:
One criticism that somebody could potentially level at my taste is that I like pretentious hipster metal, and they'd be absolutely right. Liturgy's conceptual fusions of the sounds of black metal with entirely new worlds of technical and genre expertise scratch an itch for me that so much conventional metal consistently fails to. From the more gritty scowling intensity of early wotk like Aesthetica to the nebulous conceptuality of their brilliant 2019 record H.A.Q.Q Liturgy has managed to impress me at nearly every stop along the way.
So going into a new record I was curious about a few things, like what philosophical strings the band would be pulling at and what sounds they would choose to blend into their style in order to pull it off. After doing some reading on the religious origins of the album's title and some of the recurring philosophical motifs in the lyrics and track titles it started to make sense to me quite a bit why this feels like the band's most gospel-inspired album yet. With vocal choirs backing a number of these tracks and a gothic aesthetic hanging over a significant portion of the album the presentation is as grand as it needs to be to pull off the ideas and ambitions it maintains.
93696 is split into two discs, both of which go by pretty much entirely without any real duds. About half of the tracks here are various interludes that work to add to the record's gothic presentation with some choral arrangements, ambient tones, and the occasional icy synth passages. Generally speaking I think these area tad indulgent and maybe take up more time on the record than I would have dedicated, but there's no doubt that they enrich the atmosphere of the listening experience, and after some of the louder and more densely packed tracks I appreciate the opportunity to exhale.
Even though those songs make up half the tracklist they're a much shorter percentage of the overall runtime and disc 1 has four fully fleshed-out and absolutely ferocious compositions to present. The two shorter tracks are absolutely fantastic. Before I Know The Truth was released as a single and I unequivocally love it, to the point where it might be one of my favorite songs of the year and one of my favorite Liturgy songs ever. The composition isn't necessarily the grandest but it doesn't need to be because the arrangement is absolutely masterful and the soaring guitar leads, insane drumming, and blistering screams all come together to forge a sound I find completely irresistible. Caela is another huge highlight with this wonderful fusion of electric and acoustic guitar that reminds me of one of my other favorite metal projects Panopticon. It doesn't take long for the track to reach an absolutely ripping conclusion with some of the album's most intense screaming and an amazing, hard-hitting instrumental.
Djennaration is the album's first long song running over 8 minutes and it doesn't waste a second getting started with this eruption of sound. It combines these soaring strings with some explosive drumming that grabs you by the throat from the moment it starts. Thematically the song begins with this very down-to-earth first-person storytelling but transitions over time to the more abstract side of things with some cutting and occasionally pretty brutal metaphors which can get very uncompromising. It's an early song on the record that tells you exactly what you're about to be in for.
The one song on the first disc that I'm not completely head over heels for is Haelegen II. The main issue I have with it is the way it starts as the layered sung vocals do sound really awkward and kind of out of place on the record and detract from the screamed vocals. Even with that rough start though the song is 9 minutes long and it definitely improves as time goes on with a dramatic and climactic build in the middle and an epic finale that rises high even after completely phasing out it's original instrumental.
I would describe disc 2 as a bit more on the technical and grand side of things, still sonically intense but not quite ferocious in the same way. A good example is the longest of the interlude songs Angel of Individuation which also feels the most fleshed out with its ambient backing tones, glittery chimes, and gorgeous heavenly strings on the back end. It manages to be so engaging it supersedes the idea of being just an interlude.
The five-minute Ananon serves as the first major track on disc 2, opening up with eerie chanting that sounds like something from the last Liturgy album. But it doesn't wait long to introduce some much more frenetic instrumentation and though it isn't necessarily one of my favorite compositions here, it makes up for it with intensity.
The main affair on disc 2 is two massive 14-minute songs and first up is the title track and lead single originally released last year. I love the way the song shifts between some of the more conventional churning guitar work into the band's more distinct shrill style all while maintaining its intensity through the vocals. Something I overlooked about the song at first was the striking lyrical content which detailed some absolutely mythical torture rich with amazing details.
Finally, there's Antigone II which unfolds in a bit of a slower and more methodical way than much of what else if here combining the riffs and drum kicks for these churning all-in instrumental kicks that are consistently hard-hitting. While the combination of the chugging guitars and the shrill metallic haze coming off of them with the distant eerie background singing is compelling, I do think it goes on a bit longer then would be ideal before the lead vocals kick back in. Thankfully, the song finds a really harrowing way to shed all of its methodical tendencies and slip into an absolutely chaotic uncompromising finale that feels like an eruption of pure spite and anger.
Digging into every single second of this album's 80-minute runtime that isn't perfectly necessary is the wrong way to process 93696. The album is epic in both sound and subject matter and its various interludes as well as its long compositions are not only a result of that, they're the root cause. This album is two discs worth of black metal caliber ferocity combined with the expansive compositional and thematic ambitions of one of Ravenna's YouTube philosophy lectures. The results are an absolutely glorious listen with tour de force musicianship from everyone involved and the vision to see even the most nebulous of its conceptual threads through. While this record is the absolute antithesis of casual listening if you're willing to give yourself to its monumental rises and falls, it will reward you with one of the best listens you'll find anywhere in 2023. 8.5/10
For more metal check out my review of Krallice's Crystalline Exhaustion here
