Genre-bending Brooklyn band Liturgy reinvents black metal

With its elaborate stage makeup, histrionic vocals, brutally fast rhythms, and lyrics whose obtuseness rivals seminars on dead languages, black genre is often dismissed as the “Dungeons & Dragons” of the music world, an opinion that almost proves its listeners right: making jokes is easy. Loving it in spite of itself is hard, and worthy of respect.

Into this fiercely protective enclave has entered a new crop of bands that forgo the face paint and black leather of old, including Brooklyn-based acts Krallice and Liturgy, the latter of which has been praised for its pulse-accelerating performances and singled out for front man Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s writings on the genre (a former Columbia philosophy student, he wrote an essay titled “Transcendental Black Metal” that has inspired heated debate in the metal version of a rap beef: the well-written open letter).

As Liturgy continues touring in support of its acclaimed second album, “Aesthethica,” amNY spoke with Hunt-Hendrix.