Song You Need: Liturgy’s numerological nightmare-dream

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Liturgy have shared the third and final single from their forthcoming album, 93696. The project, due out March 24 via Thrill Jockey, is their most punishing work to date, an 80-plus-minute double LP in four movements, each diving deeper into the abyss than the last. Funnily enough, the record is all about heaven. Per a press release, “93696 is a number derived from the religions of Christianity and Thelema, a numerological representation of heaven, or a new eon for civilization.”

Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix started Liturgy as a solo act in the mid-aughts, expanding to a four-piece before the release of Renihilation (2009), an electrifying debut that got them signed to Thrill Jockey, where they put out their next to projects: 2011’s Aesthethica (their breakout record, earning them a Matthew Schnipper Gen F profile) and 2015’s The Ark Work.

Hunt-Hendrix has always been an obsessive theologian, as evidenced by her group’s name, roughly defined as the public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. Her new record lays out her interpretation of heaven — which she calls “Haelegen” — and is divided into quarters, with each section representing one of the laws that govern the space: Sovereignty, Hierarchy, Emancipation, and Individuation.

“Before I Knew the Truth,” which falls into Movement II: Hierarchy, begins with a jarring, half-second glitch that sets the tone for four-and-a-half minutes of mayhem. Punishing as it is, 93696 does have moments of gorgeous tranquility, but these are nowhere to be found on the new track. Instead, it’s full of a manic energy that Hunt-Hendrix refers to as “unbound ecstasy.” There’s a bit of space (nearly a minute) between the song’s stuttering start and the pedal-to-the-floor climax that makes up the majority of its run time. But this purgatory period is far from soothing; rather, it evokes the very specific feeling of being a passenger in a very small plane, speeding down a very short runway towards the edge of a very jagged cliff. As you careen toward the precipice, the bowed head of a winged beast the size of a skyscraper rises into view, blocking your path. The monstrous angel raises its eyes to meet yours, opens its cavernous mouth, releases the most terrifying scream you’ve ever heard, and swallows the plane whole. At least that’s the vibe I’m getting.

What follows, as you pass through the creature’s celestial digestive system, is a feeding frenzy of mutilated guitars and drums that move independently of the song’s time signature at around 93,936 beats per minute. Amid the chaos, Ravenna roars out lyrics that would not be legible without a cheat sheet. “Hurl my ancient cries into the sky! / Into the sky! / The arrows rain / On sorely needed sheafs of life / Under the red lines / Under the laws of Haelegen’s wings and claws,” she sings — which, in hindsight, should be obvious.

Another glitch soundtracks your exit through the monster’s sacred bowels, and your mangled plane falls in a fiery wreck through space, further and further down, until the percussive elements fade and all that’s left are grim piano chords, and finally, a lone glockenspiel. The next track (a much mellower affair) is aptly named “Angel of Hierarchy.”

Listen to all three singles from 93696 — “Angel of Sovereignty,” “Before I Knew the Truth,” and the title track — below.