Liturgy - Renihilation (2009, 20 Buck Spin Records) and Transcendental Black Metal (2010, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix self published)

"One could propose a new meaning for black metal along with a new array of techniques to activate that meaning. The meaning of Transcendental Black Metal is Affirmation, and its new technique is the Burst Beat."

The term "mission statement" is often used in music journalism and music critique in an oblique, nonliteral way; songs and albums become "mission statements" after the fact by showcasing the absolute essence of an artist and what goals they want to achieve. Liturgy has a literal one - a manifesto entitled "Transcendental Black Metal" penned by band leader Hunter Hunt-Hendrix in 2010 and published a few months before the release of their second album Aesthetica.

I've described Liturgy as the most exciting band in the world right now on this blog because I don't know who else in history that paragraph could describe. Liturgy exists at an intersection of black metal, math rock, horrorcore, and opera in way that alienates audiences of every one of those genres. Their 2019 masterpiece H.A.Q.Q. sports a chart on the cover featuring words like "YLYLCYN" and "HAELEGEN." They've often been derided (once by myself, in print, in a 2012 edition of Ole Miss' student newspaper that I really wish I could take back) as black metal posers because of their powerful need to transcend the genre.

There's more than that, though. Putting on a Liturgy album and comprehending a Liturgy album are two different exercises and experiences. Liturgy's discography exists in their own universe, inspired by Hunt-Hendrix's self-created philosophical and religious system, which in turn is informed by Christian scholars, a handful of dense philosophical texts (think Deleuze), and communist texts. I know basically nothing about it. I've fallen into the earlier camp of listening vs. understanding these records and have still fallen in love with them despite not knowing what the fuck a "Reign Array" is. It's hard to ignore, though. I have a vinyl copy of H.A.Q.Q. sitting on my shelf at home, and every so often I'll pull it out and stare at the chart (graph? map?) on the cover. What could it possibly mean? Has there been a path to spiritual enlightenment sitting between my Lil Ugly Mane and Lost Sounds records this entire time?

The Liturgy universe begins at a simple concept: the genre of black metal. Black metal is a subgenre of metal that focuses mainly on the "extreme" portions of the genre. It completely zeroes in on the cold, dark parts of traditional metal and leaves out most of the virtuosic, shredding portions. The genre has its origins in 1980s death and thrash metal but solidified as its own distinct art form in the early 1990s with a group of bands from Norway: Burzum, Mayhem, Darkthrone, et al. The documentary Until the Light Takes Us is essential viewing for the origins of black metal.

Why is Liturgy so notable within the context of black metal as a whole? Black metal itself was a reaction to the excesses of 80s metal. Gone were the aspirations of mega stardom and teased up hair - corpse paint was the new way to separate yourself from the pack. The original group of 90s Norwegian black metal band all had a few things in common: a distinct visual aesthetic (darker colors, corpse paint), lo-fi recording techniques (Varg Vikernes from Burzum famously used the cheapest headset mics he could find on the band's Filosofem album), a love of Tolkien literature and other high fantasy themes, and an anti-Christian ethos. The Norwegian black metal bands took themselves seriously and tried to live the life they sang in their songs and, as such, death, arson, and using a picture of your bandmate's rotting corpse as your album cover became normalized in the scene. Destruction was at the core of this wave of black metal, both physical and political. Many of these bands advocated for (and practiced) white nationalism, anti-semitism, and outright murder. The anti-Christianity also went hand-in-hand with anti-capitalism, but for an insidious reason: both represented the downfall of the original European culture.

I could write a whole essay on how interesting this "second'' wave of black metal is, but what I find more interesting is Liturgy's stark contrast to the origins of black metal. They were often derided as hipsters cosplaying black metal, which "true" fans of black metal took to the point of threats of violence against the band. More than that, they stood for something different: hope and peaceful, communal spirituality. Hyperborean black metal is staunchly Statanic, both theistically and non-theistically. Regardless of whether or not the performers worshipped Satan, they believed staunchly in the individualist tenets of Satanism. Liturgy's pro-Christian (albeit in a non-traditional way) stance is a far cry from Euroynmous (of famed Norwegian metal band Mayhem)'s goal of using his music to spread sorrow throughout the world.

Hunt-Hendrix’'s outward persona is a strange mix of extremely open and obtuse to the point of confusion. There's something just a little jarring (in a positive way) about a person who maintains a Curious Cat website that references both Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich and Christian Esotericism but that's part of what keeps me engaged with this cycle of impenetrable philosophy and killer black metal. Liturgy only works because there's no pretense to the pretense. Hunt-Hendrix is a completely open book, you just have to know which page to flip to.

That's what I'm trying to accomplish here, in a sense. This was originally going to be one long article but, after writing most of this long article, I think it's best organized as a series. I want to use this space to figure out what Hunt-Hendrix's philosophy truly is and how I, as a lay person who has (as of this writing) not read much Zizek or Deleuze, can use it to inform the way I think about art, the world, and my own spirituality.

As best as I can understand it, the philosophy starts with the Transcendental Black Metal manifesto. The concept of a band's mainstream career beginning with a manifesto is over the top, but in the greater context of black metal it makes sense. The genre has been concept-forward since day one, subverting that concept requires intent and, moreover, making the audience aware of that intent. Liturgy's career began with a few self released demo tapes and EPs and, in 2009, an LP released on 20 Buck Spin Records. 2010 saw a leap to Thrill Jockey (a much more notable and visible indie label that you may remember from my essay on The Soft Pink Truth's Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase?) and the release of their second full length Aesthetica. A true introduction to the band was warranted, both to contextualize the music and lyrics within the scope of Hunt-Hendrix's philosophy and to divorce the band from the "endless hatred" that black metal exudes. It also just so happens that Hunt-Hendrix was invited to speak at a symposium called "The Hideous Gnosis: Black Metal Theory Symposium" at the end of 2009. The opportunity to push Liturgy into a more concrete philosophical space presented itself and Hunt-Hendrix, having already conceptualized most of these ideas during the writing and recording of Renhiliation, took it.

In the manifesto, Hunt-Hendrix defines traditional black metal as Hyperborean and sits it opposite her own transcendental black metal, which she describes as uniquely American. The key difference is the intent: Hyperborean black metal is nihilistic and it's primary technique is the "blast beat." Transcendental black metal is courageous, hopeful, and triumphant. It employs a new technique that Hunt-Hendrix dubs the "burst beat," which uses the same standard drumming technique as a blast beat (alternating single strokes on a cymbal and the snare, but differs in a few key features I’ll discuss later. Blast beats, by nature, are rigid. They're meant to represent cold, oppressive Scandinavian winters and hopelessness. Burst beats ebb and flow. Burst beats, while staying fairly rigid in a strictly musical sense, are meant to respond to the melodic impulses of the song and help drive the music forward instead of providing a hammering basis that the melody is laid on top of. This dichotomy is even apparent in the scant spots where Hunt-Hendrix (through drummers Greg Fox and Leo Didkovsky) employ a standard blast beat - compare the opening of "Sun of Light" to the drumming on "God of Love." The tempo on the latter seems to change every few measures and the percussion divides each verse into smaller, distinct segments.

Hunt-Hendrix's rhythm-first view of black metal reflects the spiritual nature of her art. Percussion and rhythm is the foundation of sonic artistic expression and has been the backbone of music since cavemen beat on rocks with sticks. While she does not dive into the spirituality of Liturgy too much in this manifesto, the very idea of the burst beat "affirming life" sheds light on the true nature of her work - attaining spiritual enlightenment through what she deems "sacrifice." Sacrifice, in these terms, is defined as "a self-overcoming whereby the initial rules [...] are transformed into the basis for something new and unprecedented." The process is described as "mutilat[ion]" and the manifesto supposes that transcendental black metal is black metal in the sacrificial form.

Simply put, the manifesto places Liturgy at the forefront of destroying what Hyperborean metal ultimately represents: the death of God. Scandinavian black metal and the cold, infinite blast beat represent a void with no promise. Transcendental black metal represents what Hunt-Hendrix deems a "renhiliation," which means saying "no" to nihilism. It's also the name of Liturgy's first album. Truly a universe here.

Hunt-Hendrix puts the sort of before/after style comparison of both styles of black metal into a handy chart:

The overt spiritual bent of Liturgy's music comes towards the end of the manifesto in a Q&A-styled section. The first three questions are questions asked of transcendental black metal but the fourth and fifth questions are aimed at "we." Assuming that the “we” is either Liturgy or Liturgy plus anyone who makes music in the transcendental black metal genre, Hunt-Hendrix explains that "we" believe that "God is infinite. Nature is infinite. The infinite is everywhere and cheap." By focusing less on the self and more on one's own relationship to the here-and-now (which, in turn, rejects the staunchly individualist nature of Hyperborean black metal), Transcendental Black Metal allows for true inner transformation, rather than cheap countercultural longings to something "beyond" God and peace.

This concept-forward arc seems to start on 2009's Renihilation, easily the most straightforward of their LPs. The lyrics, on a first reading, paint pictures of fairly straightforward black metal tropes: there's lightning, there's towers, there's rivers and seas. It's funny, honestly. A sizable chunk of the manifesto is dedicated to contrasting Liturgy's uniquely American style of black metal with the Hyperborean style by slotting Liturgy squarely into the timeline of black metal. Hunt-Hendrix points to Varg Vikernes murdering Euronymous as the "founding gesture" of the origin myth black metal, but there is no discussion of other American black metal acts. Surely Hunt-Hendrix had to have heard of Leviathan, Xasthur, or Make a Change...Kill Yourself, right? Well, yes, most likely. But Hunt-Hendrix's definition of "American" differs from any geographical location. Hunt-Hendrix writes that America is a "metaphor for pure unrestricted creativity" and is an environment or ideal conducive to “creative evolution” which, in the context of her philosophy, includes evolving past the murky nihilism that most black metal lives in. The larger American black metal groups had, on the whole, not done this.

These ideas can be traced back to the original Transcendentalist authors, specifically Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "The American Scholar." Hunt-Hendrix herself even admits that Emerson is the “beginning of the [philosophical] chain" in an interview with Tiny Mix Tapes. Emerson writes that "There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.” Comparing Emerson’s writing to Hunt-Hendrix’s begs the question: what exactly was Hunt-Hendrix trying to transcend? Emerson and Hunt-Hendrix were actually trying (broadly) to transcend the same thing: Europe. In Emerson’s mind, The American Scholar is one who is in touch with the past (through books) and the present (through nature) simultaneously. Hunt-Hendrix’s manifesto sits in the exact same spot that Emerson’s essay did: one foot in the European (the Hyperborean) and one foot stretching out and yearning for something distinctly American.

This intrinsically creates a second question: why Europe? For Emerson, it was to build a literary form that was distinctly American and to finally gain independence from the “courtly muses of Europe.” For Hunt-Hendrix, it was something different. In the early 1990s, Norway was faced with a banking crisis and a changing, globalized world. The “cuddly capitalism” model that the Nordic economy had been operating under had shifted more towards the capitalism end of the equation as chain restaurants flourished and the free market exchange of ideas had led to the homogenous European culture changing and morphing into something new and different. Black metal, from the ground up, was a reaction to that. This wave of Norwegian black metal espoused racist, anti-semitic, and homophobic beliefs, culiminating in the murder of a queer man by Emperor drummer Faust. While Norway bounced back relatively quickly from it's short lived economic crisis, the damage that capitalism had caused the perceived “pure” European culture had become baked into the genre from the ground up.

In this sense, it’s easy to see why a statement of intent was needed. I honestly relate to that. From my own journey with black metal as an art form, I know that it’s tough to be introduced to a genre as extreme and unique as black metal and slowly find out that it espouses absolutely terrible ideologies. It’s almost impossible to separate the art from the artist in the case where the art is about the same nihilistic purposelessness that permeates the infinite, snowy landscape of both Norway and the artists’ minds. If you want to do something with the genre and salvage pieces of it, you must find a way to divorce it from that context. Hunt-Hendrix’s work is a way to both do that to the world at large and within her own mind. Saying “no” to nihilism means saying “yes” to purpose.

Aside from the employment of the burst beat (in it's natal stages) there's not much musically separating a song like "Ecstatic Rite" from Renihilation from the Hyperborean bands. Renihilation is easily Liturgy's most capital B Black capital M Metal album. The low fidelity recording once again places Liturgy firmly in the lineage of the Burzums and Darkthrones of the world. There is experimentation in the instrumental electronic interludes but, again, these songs are mostly focused on atmosphere; Renihilation feels cold. Portions of it, namely the aptly named “Behind the Void” feel like they're reaching for something more but miss the mark by a hair.

A closer lyrical read of the album within the context of the manifesto, however, shows that the album is filled with imagery of transformation by way of using traditional black metal imagery and destroying it. Hunt-Hendrix screams "form gives way to form." Beings and concepts burn in transformative, cleansing fire on "Arctica." In a sense, the album always had to be like this. A good portion of Liturgy's philosophy, at least at this time, centers around what is contrasted with what could be. Renhiliation was written and recorded before "Transcendental Black Metal" was published and, in a sense, reflects the transition from Hyperborean to the sacrificial form. The greatest artists show and tell, and there's no better way to explain the transformation into Transcendental Black Metal than by letting the process unfurl in the listener's ear.

As I was writing this essay, Hunt-Hendrix gave a lecture during the Creepy Teepee festival about the burst beat, followed by a live demonstration. I was not able to attend, but she did, helpfully, post this graphic from the lecture on her Instagram.

I've been playing drums for about 12 years. I can't play rudiments or read drum notation, but I can explain this to an extent. The burst beat differs from the blast beat in the sense that there are two states (stable and chaotic) and three sub-states within each of those states. The blast beat is actually a small subsection of these states, covered in the "stable" section. Hyperborean black metal, I would argue, actually uses two of the three stable states. The "blast" is the standard black metal blast beat, with each hand alternating between a cymbal (on the 1 and 3) and the snare (on the 2 and 4), with the kick drum accentuating the downbeat. The "grind" is a beat regularly implied in grindcore music (hence the name) where the kick, snare, and cymbal are all hit at the same time on every beat. The "hit" is an interesting one. I didn't actually get to watch the lecture, but from what I can make out in Hunt-Hendrix's notation, it's a pattern of hitting the kick and cymbal on the one and three and filling the space in between with multiple snare hits.


The hits do not show up much on Renhilation (and neither does flourish), despite the fact that the other two do, which is one of the more interesting parts of Renihilation in the context of Liturgy’s overall discography. While not all of this is laid out directly in the manifesto, Hunt-Hendrix, by way of including parts of the stable and chaotic states but not all of them, is planting one foot firmly in the Hyperborean while reaching the other one out into the Transcendental. Hunt-Hendrix shows what is before showing what can or should be.

The hits, at least as employed by later Liturgy tracks like Generation (I've linked to a live video to better show off the hits state) actually has its roots in another one of Hunt-Hendrix's projects, Survival. The style of playing has more to do with math rock than any form of black metal, which is one of the key pieces to the transcendental black metal puzzle. Math rock, like transcendental black metal, is particular about it's drums and the placement of each hit. The unconventional time signatures dictate this. A majority of Hyperborean black metal is influenced by hardcore punk, namely downbeat (aka d-beat) bands like Discharge. These scuzzy, lofi bands used the percussion almost solely as propulsion, not as a way to create and release tension. All three genres share something in common, though: definition by way of percussion. Even if a listener cannot pierce through any other aspect of a song, they can analyze and identify it by the types of rhythms it employs.

The first few tracks of Renhiliation do not contain much in the way of what a listener might readily identify as Transcendental. The tracks grind, the tracks blast, but they don't flourish much. To pick on "Ecstatic Rites" again, there is nothing distinctly Liturgy about the passage beginning at 3:10. The stomping rhythm punctuated by hits on the ride's bell could come from almost any metal band. Something happens after, though. In all of the chugging and headbanging that the track connotes, there are a few genuine moments of the hits state. It doesn’t linger for long, but the concept is injected into the song and sticks out among the ping-ponging riffs. Renhiliation sticks out among Liturgy's main discography because it's the most standard black metal the band has ever gotten, but that's the point. The record is constantly in a state of transformation, torn between the Hyperborean and the Transcendental. Liturgy achieves renhiliation by taking one step out of the shadow of Hyperborean metal and saying "no."

Even reviews of the album reflect this. Most don't even touch on the philosophy behind the band because it's secondary to the fact that it's a slightly odd but mostly standard black metal album.The Pitchfork review barely talks about anything besides the drumming and how blindingly fast most of it is. The Metal-Archives review, written retrospectively after Liturgy has a few more albums under their belt, says it's the "closest [the band] comes to all out black metal." An analysis of the Rate Your Music scores (submitted by users, not professional critics) shows that the average score sharply declines in 2011, after the manifesto and Aesthetica had been released to the general public. During this time, Hunt-Hendrix would have been doing more and more high profile interviews. It’s not like there was no one unwilling to talk to Hunt-Hendrix about these things after they were made aware of the philosophy and accompanying manifesto, but most interviewers approached Renihilation at face value or were merely attempting to write a blurb for an upcoming show, even though Hunt-Hendrix readily identified as Transcendental before the manifesto was released. Metal Sucks posted an interview in 2009 that asks simple questions like “Does Liturgy’s music express themes of transcendence, or does it induce transcendence, or both?” that lead Hunt-Hendrix to discuss the burst beat in depth. There’s very little back and forth at this point, though. The interviews approach the topic but back off before any real ground is covered. Once the manifesto was published and readily available online and at their merch table, journalists began asking pointed questions about it. This semi-infamous video from Hipster Black Metal shows the other band members becoming visibly uncomfortable during an interview where Hunt-Hendrix is poked and prodded into giving a long diatribe on philosophy and transcendentalism.

That leaves the question: “Why do people hate Hunter Hunt-Hendrix?” or, really, “Why does the Transcendental Black Metal philosophy make people so uncomfortable?” I think it’s for the exact same reason I wanted to write over 3000 words on a small part of an extremely prolific band and philosopher’s career: it sounds insane at first until you read it. I can’t vouch for the rest of Liturgy’s philosophy yet (featuring concepts like Reign Array and Kel Vahaal) but as far as this manifesto and accompanying album are concerned, it actually makes a lot of sense when you sit and think about it. Why can’t we divorce black metal from its original, baked-in intent? Why can’t we see art as a moving, active force in the world that permeates further into our brains and souls than we want to admit? According to Hunt-Hendrix, Deleuze foretold that philosophy will no longer be confined to books and, instead, take on and take over other art forms like music. If everything is political, everything is philosophical, whether we want it to be or not. Hunt-Hendrix is just brave enough to admit it.