You know the type of black metal. Somewhere between floaty atmospherics, and a raw fuzz, where snarling screams ring out over tremolos that are just that bit too indistinct to be straightforwardly driving. Where the energy is uniformly bleak and apathetic, whether you’re hearing blastbeats or no percussion at all. Herein lies Litha, the project of ambient composer and Mizmor collaborator Andrew Black. Unlike his other solo work, Litha is unpolished and angry, as well as differing wildly in the literal musical sense of being black metal. This is deliberate, with Black stating his desire to express his anger and pain through a more appropriate outlet that can do for him what ambient music can’t. There probably isn’t a better genre through which to channel negative emotions, so how does it serve Litha?
Litha is not happy listening, and it’s not meant to be. Black’s throaty rasps and screams convey a deep desperation, and at times, are totally comprehensible, putting the nihilistic lyrics center-stage to emphasize feelings of hopelessness and rage. The midway confession of opener “Hunger”—I sleep on a bed of broken glass//I wake to lick my wounds like a dog— is just an example. The guitars are wrapped in the blue mist of echo and gentle fuzzy haze, lending the riffs a dull warmth that only enhances the coldness of their melancholic and sinister refrains, and of the contrasting sharp vocals. And as above intimated, change though the tempos do—from racing speeds to doomy plods—the music has an unshakeable life-weary lethargy. There is little embellishment beyond some vocal and instrumental reverb, and no escape from the misery that bleeds out of the deceptively simplistic compositions.
All this to say that Litha absolutely achieves what Black intended. The music’s rawness, bleakness, and sadness is undeniable. Outside of the wretched atmosphere wrought by forward, embittered harsh vocals and a gritty, gloomy production, melody plays a key role. Melancholy melodies that slip in and out of being malevolent drive the emotional point home. Tremolos transform from sad into sinister (“Hunger,” “Thirst”) and reach subtle peaks of mournful beauty (“Wearing Away,” “Bite the hand”), rising into an almost-resigned urgency (“Wearing Away,” “I Am Many”). Themes gently shift across songs but remain uncomplicated. In fact, it’s the simplest refrains that bring the most powerful moments—the lament that leads “I Am Many,” the shimmering high tremolo that rises out of “Bite the Hand.” Similarly, Litha’s tendency to drop into blackened doom that’s almost post grants these fragile guitar melodies a presence that only helps their emotional weight (“Wearing Away,” “I Am Many,” “Bite the Hand”).
Yet Litha is missing…something. Something that would take these songs and impress them upon the listener more strongly. As it is, the album has a hazy gaze, too demure to immediately arrest its audience. And so it has taken many listens to truly appreciate it, and its quiet force. The washed, softening production—which sounds fantastic by the way—works so well to impress the grey and morose sentiments within but drains more than just color from the emotion and the artwork. Litha’s understatedness is no doubt a design feature, its ambivalence an exact analog of the depressive feelings behind it. I just wish it hadn’t worked quite so well at first glance.
For those with patience and sympathy for this style of black metal, Litha is a glowing example. A (hidden?) gem with considerable depth and beauty beneath a frosted surface. And, more importantly perhaps, through it, Litha succeeds in doing what it was created to do. Dispiriting, melancholy, and bleak, black metal has made the ideal vessel for Andrew Black’s pain.
Rating: Good
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Tartarus Records
Website: lithamusic.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: November 17th, 2023
