Just as I put the final touches to this list, this appeared. A brand spanking new album from transcendental Black Metal legends Liturgy. No pre-warning, no fanfare, no physical release; it wasn’t even a Friday. Just one day in mid-November suddenly this was here, their (I say “their”, it is a one band project of Hunter Hunt-Hendrix) first record in four year. In some people’s eyes (including my own) Hunter is a genius, single handily redefining Black Metal as a euphoric force of positivity. In the eyes of Norwegian Black Metal purists he is a heathen and charlatan that has desecrated their music by apocryphally claiming that it didn’t have to be satanic or even evil to still be Black Metal (he has even written academic papers on the subject). H.A.Q.Q. is a representation of his uniquely Marxist and psychoanalytic vision of God (or so he tells us). Musically it is a sonic bath of searing up-tempo quivering riffs. It is over-following with jubilant and ecstatic waves of sign. This is the closet I have ever come to what rapture is and enlightenment. It is pure musical exhilaration and builds and builds until it then stops and exits from your life, leaving your whole existence a light brighter.

Read More