But at the same time, you're appropriating from hip-hop and southern culture and combining it with something that relates to oppressing that culture. It challenges metal against something that it culturally opposes. It pulls it further away from its roots, and it's kind of a clash. To combine it with rap is really to do this violence to black metal, which is kind of interesting to me.
Put it this way: Black metal is the kind of music that is known for racism, homophobia, political conservatism, and this closed-off hatred of The Other. But there's something interesting to me about the challenge. The main reason is that I liked it, and I wanted it to sound that way. So why did you want to do triplet flow and shy away from screaming? How does the style apply to larger, conceptual goals of The Ark Work ? I think if you listen to it, it makes sense. So I don't think it would be in good taste to actually sound like I'm rapping. It's hard to make music that is really eclectic but doesn't sound eclectic. Bungle, where it's something like salsa-meets-industrial. It has all these parts that come from very specific places, but you wouldn't necessarily recognize any of them. I want this album to be this alchemical fusion. You might not know if I was rapping unless I told you I was. It sounds more like you're influenced by it, or the religious chanting you mentioned.
It doesn't sound like you're trying to rap. And at first I was weirded out by the similarities, but now I think it's kind of cool. That older style is so popular and now it has a weird resonance with rap that's happening right now, which I didn't intend to reflect. As I was working on it, I saw A$AP Rocky come out with songs quoting Bone Thugs' flow. It took a long time to write this record. Interestingly, I planned on doing this for the new album before those guys blew up. Now there's like Migos and Kendrick Lamar, and triplet flow is all over the place. And I felt if I were to change the vocal style of the music, I would want to use that kind of triplet-flow language because it reminds me so much of liturgical chanting and things the super occults would chant. I was a huge Bone Thugs-N-Harmony fan when I was little-and Three Six Mafia and stuff like that, too. I loved Korn as a kid, but I don't feel like I'm above rap-metal. I thought that was interesting because rap-metal has such a weird reputation.
Hunter Hunt Hendrix: It's not a rap-metal record, but I really wanted to try to find a new basis for combining rap and metal. VICE: I was told the new album is really influenced by southern hip-hop and triplet-flow rap. Hunt-Hendrix talked to me about what he really means by "rap-metal," how he's attempted to tie art, music, and philosophy together in a seamless triangle, and the album being influenced by a Russian composer who had a mystic plan to unveil the apocalypse through sound. And that's exactly what the bandleader hopes for. It's reference points-the chantlike triplet flow of southern hip-hop acts like Three 6 Mafia, Swans (who the band recently opened for), grandiose classical composers-are meaningless in comparison to the feeling of frisson that the ten songs inspire. Though Hunt-Hendrix describes the music as "rap-metal" (two genres appropriated in one this time!), the record could barely be categorized as anything other than a Liturgy album.
On March 23, Liturgy will release The Ark Work on Thrill Jockey, its first LP in four years, and undoubtedly it's most epic. And thanks to the Brooklyn-based band, a bunch of people probably checked out the metal groups that purists claim Hunt-Hendrix has tainted with his didactic texts and nerdy interviews. To many kids who didn't grow up idolizing OG Norwegian metal, Liturgy was a less intimidating entry point to a music genre where not knowing the difference between War Metal and Viking Metal is more embarrassing than shitting yourself at prom. But for those who don't jerk off over original Mayhem pressings, Liturgy has always been an awesome (albeit brainy) band that makes awesome records.
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