Obviously, I’m sticking myself out here for tons of ridicule by white knighting for notorious post-BM upstarts Liturgy, but before I stick up for these guys I’d like to catch everyone up on all the basic drama via some embedded videos and links because I’m lazy:
The Video That Started It All:
HHH’s Manifesto (most of it):
http://www.vice.com/read/not-fit-to-print-transcendental-metal
Obviously, it’s these two things that have really caused the internet to take the piss out of Liturgy. As far as I know, it all seemed to come to a head when Chris Grigg of the USBM band Woe:
Without Logic – An Open Letter to Hunter Hunt-Hendrix – Metal Review Features and Editorials – Metal Review Community
You can find more interesting reviews, videos, and blog posts about Liturgy on your own, I’m definitely not trying to be exhaustive here.
Last, if you haven’t heard Liturgy and you’re too lazy to go on youtube or myspace or whatever to listen to them, I’m gonna embed one last video so you can hear them for yourself:
Obviously, for internet metal nerds like myself, this is very controversial stuff! These guys don’t look or act very black metal!!
The reason why I feel bad for Liturgy and have some respect for them is because what they’re doing is much more ballsy than most other metal bands out there attempting to be “controversial” by being anti-Christian, evil, or even racist! At this point, I feel like the whole “is it OK to listen to Burzum even though he’s racist and a murderer?” is fairly played-out, and no one really gives a shit that Nokturnal Mortum or Graveland have strong NSBM tendencies. In 2011, if you really want to stir the pot, bring up Liturgy (or even better, Krallice, Wolves in the Throne Room, Nachtmystium, Deafheaven, etc.) to a bunch of internet metal nerds and watch the fireworks.
Anyway, another strength of Liturgy’s is their originality. Obviously, these guys are competent musicians, and their style is unique both musically and lyrically. If you listen to their songs, you’ll notice that their sound is very “high” compared to the typical grim, “low” sounds of BM’s heavy distortion and thundering drums. Of course, something else to point out is Liturgy’s lyrical themes. Sure, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s “manifesto” is pretentious and a slightly arrogant, but aren’t those characteristics that are usually embraced by the metal community? Read any interview with Peste Noire, Judas Iscariot, Deathspell Omega, it doesn’t matter…it appears as if all this backlash truly stems from so-called post-black metallers’ fashion sense, not music.