A lot of metal people rag on Liturgy (the NYC black metal band recently signed to Thrill Jockey) for being too hipster and false. They’re turned off by the lack of metalhead attire and frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s admittedly pretentious musings on what he calls ‘transcendental black metal.’

But you know, try as I might, I can’t bring myself to dislike their music. I’ve seen them live many times, once when drummer Greg Fox (one of the best drummers I know) was on tour with one of his other bands and Hunter had to play pre-recorded MIDI beats from an iPod in lieu of real drums and it actually kinda worked. I really think they’re a solid, absolutely ripping band who are doing really interesting things, musically. As a vocalist myself, I love the vocal layering they do, though I understand why some might find it grating.

I think if these guys were making watered-down, imitation black metal and selling their songs to Volkswagen, then that would be lame, but if you never heard of these guys and someone put on one of their records (Renihilation or their new one, Aesthetica), would you really think they were some pop band pretending to be metal? I’ll accept any criticism of the band’s actual music, but I can’t help but think the real and primary reason they’re so maligned is their choice of t-shirts and their arty approach. For me, I just don’t care how ‘trve’ a band is.

In the words of Natasha Lyonne’s character in Detroit Rock City, ‘As far as I’m concerned, good tunes is good tunes,’ and even if they’re hipsters, they’re not homophobes, misogynists, neo-nazis, or convicted murderers, like so many of the other bands we metalheads happily listen to. My two cents.

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Not to be all up in Thrill Jockey’s, er, jock, but they are just killing it with all their recent additions to their roster — Daniel Higgs-fronted Skull Defekts, Liturgy, and now Zomes. Asa Osbourne, fellow Lungfish bandmate of Daniel Higgs, is out with another batch of blissed-out tape beat and keyboard compositions.
[audio:http://thecargoculte.com/theallseeingi/right_knowledge/mp3/03-Zomes_ColouredMatter.mp3]

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Daniel Higgs is the new frontman for Swedish experimental rock band The Skull Defekts. This makes me happy. Their latest album, Peer Amid, is out on Thrill Jockey and the band is touring. This is a lot more ‘rock’ than the other stuff Higgs has been up to lately, and there’s a ’90s vibe to the new line-up of the band, but I still dig it. It kinda makes me hope there will be a Lungfish reunion soon.
[audio:http://www.thrilljockey.com/assets/freedownload/The_Skull_Defekts-Fragrant_Nimbus.mp3]

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I got to know Thrill Jockey as the label for mellow, contemplative art/jazz bands that wind up being played on NPR. Of late, though, they have been signing some really left-field acts such as Daniel Higgs, Future Islands, Barn Owl, and now Brooklyn-based ‘transcendental black metal’ band Liturgy. I think it’s a good fit because Liturgy doesn’t really belong on a straight-forward metal label.
[audio:http://dodge77.com/playlist/Liturgy-Ecstatic_Rite.mp3]

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Ok, just like backpack rap and alt-country acts piss me off because they are too apologetic for the genre they work in, there’s a lot of new instrumental and indie metal bands that rub me the wrong way for taking out the elements of the genre that might scare off the uninitiated.

But vocal-less band Barn Owl, whose debut album, Ancestral Star, is now out on Thrill Jockey, are deliberate enough in their approach to achieve a heavy, dark atmosphere with out tremolo picking, screaming, or extreme volume.
[audio:http://antigravitybunny.com/audio/Barn%20Owl%20-%20Light%20from%20the%20Mesa.mp3]

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Baltimore synth-pop band Future Islands have been busy lately. Along with In The Fall, a 12″ EP of b-sides released earlier this month, their Thrill Jockey debut In Evening Air is due out May 4, right at the start of a month-and-a-half-long tour. Gerrit Welmers lays down dance-y New Wave rhythms and William Cashion slams hard on the bass, while Sam Herring’s frenzied bellowing vocals sound like a drunken Greg Dulli doing covers at an 80s karaoke bar.
[audio:http://iguessimfloating.net/assets/mp3s/03%20Tin%20Man.mp3]

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