Liturgy is the project of Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix, whose yearning, energetic “transcendental black metal” moves between metal, art music, and sacred ritual. The current lineup consists of Mario Miron (guitar), Tia Vincent-Clark (bass), and Leo Didkovsky (drums). The band is praised for their combination of sincere emotion, compositional complexity, stylistic daring, and intense live energy, and is simultaneously a medium and platform for drama and theology.
Liturgy was founded by Hunt-Hendrix in 2005 as a solo project within the Brooklyn DIY scene, while she was studying philosophy and classical composition at Columbia. In 2009, Hunt-Hendrix sparked a heated debate in the music world with her lyrics Transcendental Black Metal. After the project expanded to a quartet, the band made a worldwide impression with their second album, Aesthethica, released in 2011, in which black metal was combined with math rock and the music was infused with an unexpectedly loving, emotional energy.
Their ambitious 2015 album The Ark Work sparked controversy by incorporating IDM and trap production into their musical language. In the fall of 2019, they solidified this sound world with their critically acclaimed fourth studio album HAQQ, which is linked to an ongoing philosophical YouTube lecture series. Their fifth studio album, an opera titled Origin of the Alimonies, was released in November 2020. It was recorded with an eight-piece chamber ensemble and performed at the Roadburn Festival in 2021 as the live soundtrack to a film of the same name by Hunt-Hendrix.
After a solo exhibition of sculptures in 2022, the album 93696 was released in 2023, followed by an extensive world tour.
