Aesthetica, the third release and second album from Liturgy, shows the band exploring in greater depth themes initially touched on by their critically acclaimed debut album Renihilation. The band used every instrument, literal or figurative, to produce meaning and intensity, disregarding the genre boundaries of black metal, hardcore, and experimental music. On Renihilation, Liturgy made use of simple song structures, and concentrated on sustaining a blindingly high intensity level from start to finish. Aesthetica, a more controlled and polyvalent effort, finds the band operating at multiple levels and using more varied forms. The music is both elaborately crafted and chaotically performed. Songs often begin in the form of a simple chant or hypnotic abstraction, then evolve into something dense and complex. The record is a unified whole. The music is supersaturated with lofty melodies and lyrics, bursting with frenzied execution, and builds to a boiling point of chaos, distorting all meaning and distilling to reveal the raw core of pure sonic joy.
