Liturgy (NY-USA) - H.A.Q.Q. (2019)^{Release ID: 14083}

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It seems as experimental and avant-garde Black Metal knows no bounds with how far it will push into the realm of eccentricity and unconventionality. H.A.Q.Q. is a highly experimental, chaotic, and dissonance based album that uses Black Metal vocals and tremolo picking as a base for what could be described as melodies. While there are some vaguely coherent musical elements scattered here and there in even the most dissonant tracks like "HAJJ" and "Pasaqalia", much of this album's run time is spent in turbulent walls of noise which eventually give way to the surprisingly beautiful interludes of "Exaco I", "II", and "III". While harsh and confusing, H.A.Q.Q. offers up some very memorable and wholly unique experiences, even though I could do without the dying recorder sound on "HAJJ".

The most prominent experiment that most will remember is the jackhammering glitchiness of notes being repeating at varying speeds and rhythms, which does its job of creating an uncomfortable atmosphere, keeping the listener on edge for when it may happen next. It's surprisingly used sparingly, to the point where I forgot it existed until "HAQQ", which is a huge plus because it makes the effect unique and interesting without totally feeling like a gimmick. I might be giving it too much credit, but it does a great job of creating a sense of confusion and harshness in a way that's completely new to me in terms of Black Metal. This harshness is properly offset by the album's interludes and closing track, which uses piano, church bells and synth to create a disturbingly calm atmosphere between the chaos. The album in full is an assault on the senses, but manages to strike some kind of balance somewhere along the way.

Where Liturgy shines on this album is the climaxes, with each feeling earned and executed extremely well. The buildup of "Virginity" that eventually leads into the riff of "Pasaqalia" is masterful, as well as the ending crescendo of "HAQQ" that sounds like a computer is tying itself into a knot while overheating and spewing errors all across a monitor. There's enough downtime in the varied "Exacos" to give some rest and respite before jumping back into the fray, which makes the climaxes all the more powerful when they do come up.

Although H.A.Q.Q. grew on me enough to write about it in this kind of way, I never really found it emotionally moving or anything. I think what Liturgy is doing here is somewhat groundbreaking and certainly very different than anything I've heard, but at the end of the day I didn't get much more out of it than what I've already stated. Is it weird and strange just for the sake of it? Possibly, but it's a weirdly, strangely, well composed and technically gripping album that made me want to investigate it as deep as I did. The vocals are easily the weakest part of the album to the point where I would end up zoning them out, but they serve their purpose well enough I guess. H.A.Q.Q. turned out to be an extremely interesting look into what creativity still lies in the unexplored corners of Black Metal, but the novelty of noisy and dissonance just for the sake of it has never really captivated me and has mostly worn off by what little I've heard. Down the road this may be one of the albums to point to as an important shift in how we listen to Metal or dissonant music, but for now it feels like a party trick that you tell your friends about so they can experience the madness once and then move on.