Liturgy Bring Their Opus 93969 To The Turf Club (Show Saturday!)

Liturgy’s highly acclaimed 80-minute album, “93696,” was released earlier this year, garnering plenty of praise all across the board. Founded by Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix as a solo project in 2005, Liturgy has expanded through a couple of iterations of the band over the last couple of decades. Hunt-Hendrix made waves with her Manifesto on Transcendental Black Metal which dropped with their first album before pivoting into a number of more experimental directions with the subsequent releases. While the band’s current roster has a few recordings behind them in the last few years, 93696 stitches together many of the recurring themes we’ve heard over the years, melding black metal riffing with orchestration and computer glitchy. In songs like “Djennaration” a crescendoing flute crashes into drum machine kicks and claps before turning on a dime into blasting metal beats. You’ll occasionally stumble on a head-nodding halftime rhythm like in the middle of “Caela”, 93696 is full of proggy twists and turns, complex math riffs, and a barrage of surprises that all still fit into a beautifully cohesive sonic journey.

While diving deep into Hunter-Hendrix’s Substack and Youtube channel may not be required to appreciate the journey of the album, there’s plenty of insight into the themes you find yourself digging into with each listening. It’s been quite a few years since we last saw the band in town (Eaux Claires 2015 the closest to us in a while?) and I’m excited to see how things translate to a live setting.

– Adam

Liturgy plays the Turf Club Saturday (6/17) with Big|Brave. More information here.