Liturgy - The Ark Work - review
Liturgy - The Ark Work - review
Tracklist
01. Fanfare02. Follow
03. Kel Valhaal
04. Follow II
05. Quetzalcoatl
06. Father Vorizen
07. Haelegen
08. Reign Array
09. Vitriol
10. Total War
A review by
ScreamingSteelUS December 10, 2015
Remember when Deafheaven released Sunbather and stirred up a massively idiotic hurricane of controversy over the blasphemous notion of "happy black metal"? If you asked a deaf person to describe for the Dalai Lama the most extreme criticisms that befell Deafheaven and then recorded an album based on what the Dalai Lama explained to you through interpretive dance, The Ark Work is the brass-suffocated, painfully bright, vaguely introspective, godawfully repetitive, rough-approximation-of-shoegaze-fed-through-a-wood-chipper-and-reconstituted-into-a-black-metal-type-abrasive-music-album thing that you would probably produce.
Liturgy herald the arrival of their latest work with the flattest, most artificial, most obnoxious horns in the history of recorded music. Never before have I actually gotten a serious headache from trying to push through a single album. I don't think it would be much of an exaggeration to say that the first 13 minutes of The Ark Work could be considered a war crime so heinous that the Hague would sooner remand this album to the custody of Josef Mengele than allow it to be played in the presence of decent, hard-working folk. I have listened to plenty of worse albums over the years, but nothing - NOTHING - matches those bloody, godawful horns in terms of pure, unfathomable irritation. Meanwhile, the vocals wandering tragically in the background sound like the strange hiccups of sound that people mistook for satanic messages back in the 1970s when they played their Judas Priest records backwards.
What, truthfully, is so bad about The Ark Work? The digital effects are hammered in awkwardly, vomiting pointlessly-computerized vocal tracks and ambient sounds all over the place. The songs are aimless, undefined, cannibalistic, meandering, and nonsensical. The production is abhorrently mishandled to such an impressive degree that the person responsible must, in fact, be a two-by-four with a face scrawled on one end in semi-congealed lamb's blood. Dead-eyed, monotonous vocals skip and twitter and flummox and dither about like an AI having a seizure. Jangling guitars plagued by an overage of bright, post-y, gaze-y cheeriness bludgeon the same boring passages into your ears over and over and over again, like a relentlessly chipper coworker who refuses to leave you a single moment of unassailed silence. A pig horking up its own stomach lining onto a balalaika could create a more polished and meaningful piece of music.
Listening to this album is like being tied to a the front of a moving train and having monkeys throw water balloons full of Ceaușescu's spinal fluid and rusty Communist AIDS at you from a motorcycle speeding alongside. This is a true musical migraine. "Vitriol" might actually be the worst song of 2015. I can't continue to write. This album has killed me.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 2 |
| Songwriting: | 2 |
| Originality: | 10 |
| Production: | 2 |
Written on 10.12.2015 by
Written on 10.12.2015 by
Dull Music for Dull People Comments
Comments:
19
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293 users
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Posts: 213  |
Posts: 213
Funny thing, I was just thinking about looking this album up, as it seems to appear pretty often in the TOP lists throughout the web. Thanky you very much for saving my time, energy and mental health. 
---- World won't end today - it's already tomorrow in Australia.
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 Posts: 64426 |
Posts: 64426
I like th opening part of the review, but I don't get this bands music
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| !J.O.O.E.!
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Posts: 537  |
Posts: 537
Just heard the intro and bursted out laughing xD, WTF IS THIS? okey yea it's pure shit..
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Posts: 792  |
Posts: 792
I had to try The Ark Work after reading this, but despite being truly awful, it's still not the worst thing I've ever heard. Please review this next. Also, I'm amazed there was no mention of how bad the drums are. Next to the vocals and the HORNS, they really killed any enjoyment I could have seen myself getting from this.
---- If you're 666 then I'm 777 [URL]http://www.last.fm/user/Joodicator[/URL]
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Posts: 5826  |
Posts: 5826
Meh. Predictable review. You guys know no music
---- "Aah! The cat turned into a cat!" - Reimu Hakurei
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Posts: 540  |
Posts: 540
My opinion of this album is always changing. Sometimes I can tolerate it and actually enjoy bits of it. But holy shit those vocals. What the fuck is up with the vocals.
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Posts: 107  |
Posts: 107
I love it and I hate it. Fascinating and annoying at the same time. Like all previous albums. And I really like Quetzalcoatl
---- Metalhead since 1987
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Posts: 5826 Written by PēterisP on 10.12.2015 at 15:35 Yes, exactly my impression as well. I thought it was a bit too long though... Can get pretty tiring very quickly. Not something i'd listen to on a daily basis but still a good bad album
---- "Aah! The cat turned into a cat!" - Reimu Hakurei
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 Posts: 18615 |
Posts: 18615
Damn if you think this is a "good bad album" I do NOT want to know what kind of B-movies you enjoy, dude. It's probably a mvoie about a retarded kit hiting a bucket with a dead duck for 10 hours. SO UNCONVENTIONAL. Written by [user id=4365] on 10.12.2015 at 13:17 I knew I didn't need anymore reasons to not trust theneedledrop's opinions but the fucker gave this album a 7/10. WOAH.
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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Posts: 3593 Written by X-Ray Rod on 10.12.2015 at 18:15 For a moment I thought you were talking about a certain user from here.... Then I read carefully and I realized you were talking about those time wasters from theneedledrop. 
---- Crackhead Megadeth reigns supreme.
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Posts: 18615 Written by Maco on 10.12.2015 at 19:28 I usually agree with him or at the very most there's a difference of one point or so. But this time it was mindblowing. xD
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| !J.O.O.E.!
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Posts: 905 Written by X-Ray Rod on 10.12.2015 at 19:30 Its funny, I pretty much agree with him when it comes to most of his opinions outside of metal, but when it comes to metal im nearly always in complete disagreement.
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Posts: 310  |
Posts: 310
Mostly complete rubbish indeed. My favourite track must be Kel Valhaal: pooot, pot pot pot popopopooot, pot pot popopooot, pot popopopot, p-p-pooot, popopot pot, popooot, p-p-p-p-p-p-p-pooooot... just hilarious. And I do think HHH is trolling everbody.
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| Lit.
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Posts: 18  |
Posts: 18
At least the album made the reviewer furiously annoyed. You gotta give them that credit.
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 Posts: 1571 |
Posts: 1571
Revisiting it, I see the appeal, and I sort of get it. It could've been good. But the excessive repetitiveness and the fact that using seriously f*cked up effects to emulate a PC dying from an endless cycle while trying to crush through some audio is seriously annoying beyond belief and got old quickly after hearing it the 10th time in 3 minutes. The continuous wall of sound doesn't give a breathing space to the listener and the music gets tiresome. The cover is exquisitely lame and goes how little effort went into the production.
---- 
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Posts: 9574
This is probably the #1 all-time best Metalstorm review.
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