Liturgy Redefining U.S. Black Metal, Releasing a Manifesto — Really

Homegrown black metal is starting to really turn heads in the American metal scene, so that's why we asked the cerebral NYC black metallers in Liturgy about their take on the genre they traffic within. "Too many USBM bands are still living in the shadow of Europe," guitarist/vocalist Hunter Hunt-Hendrix told Noisecreep. "They're copying the superficial characteristics of European black metal and missing the core of what black metal really is. Liturgy approaches the techniques and culture of black metal from the bottom up, so as to create something that's faithful to the tradition, but in a way that's authentically resonant with American culture: a truly American black metal."

The band -- which features drummer Greg Fox, who went to high school with Hunt-Hendrix and as a result, they've been playing together since they were wee lads of 14 -- is executing its goal to be truly American black metal by working on material for their next record and planning a Spring 2010 tour. "I'm also working on a manifesto for a new way of approaching black metal and the title is 'Transcendental Black Metal.'

"I'll be presenting it in December at the Hideous Gnosis Black Metal Symposium in Brooklyn," Hunt-Hendrix said. He majored in philosophy at Columbia – so he's obviously a smarty pants and his manifesto is probably an intellectual and impressive read- and eventually abandoned his original thesis. "It was on Nietzsche's philosophy of the Will to Power," he said.