01. Children of the Skull Defekts
02. Beyond Within
03. Embryo
04. Oyrbme
05. Nihtiw Dnoyeb
06. Stkefed Lluks eht fo Nerdlihc

When Brooklyn-based black metal outfit Liturgy signed to indie label Thrill Jockey last week, Stereogum scribe and metal expert Brandon Stosuy posted a philosophical pondering on his Twitter account:

What's this mean for black metal, black metallists?

Perhaps the best response came from renowned freelance music journalist Christopher Weingarten. The master of Twitter-based music criticism responded:

Dudes dress like Abe Vigoda, play Todd P shows and speak at symposiums. Don't think any real black metal fan gives a shit.

Weingarten's quip wasn't unfounded: Liturgy's main force, frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, certainly can concur. "I've never felt like much of a member of the metal community, and certainly the other members of the band I think don't really identify with metal so much," says Hunt-Hendrix. "In New York there's not much of a metal community, at least, that I've ever been involved with."

Like many youngsters who love music in the age of the Internet, Hunt-Hendrix found the metal community online. "I think one of the cool things about metal is the way that it's so global... where you can be one of 200 people who know about a band from a little town in Poland or something," he says.

For Hunt-Hendrix, his physical involvement in metal began in high school. Back then, he and Liturgy drummer Greg Fox, who also performs with Baltimore psych group Teeth Mountain and releases solo experimental music as GDFX, began dabbling in metal.

"We had a hardcore band, it was called Holy Wars, and it had some black metal elements in it," Hunt-Hendrix says.

Soon, Hunt-Hendrix began focusing on his own, metal-focused material. "When I was like 18 or 19, I started doing bedroom black metal, just making it solo on a four-track and things just kind of developed from there," he says.

Liturgy grew out of Hunt-Hendrix's bedroom experimenting, and the project and its reputation have both grown since that zygotic period of existence in Hunt-Hendrix's teens. Liturgy has expanded to include four members, earned praise from places like The New York Times and Pitchfork for its debut, 2009's Renihilation (20 Buck Spin), and become figureheads of transcendental black metal.

A student of American Romanticism, Hunt-Hendrix's approach to black metal skews the normal associations of the genre. There's no church-burning or cultish worship when it comes to Liturgy: Just good ole' fashioned American spiritualism, as expressed through soaring, lightening-fast instrumentation.

"The idea of sort of touching the soul is, I think, something black metal [can be] a powerful tool to activate that," Hunt-Hendrix says.

Liturgy performs with Live Nudes tomorrow at 10:30 p.m. at Comet Ping Pong.

At its best moments, Infinite Love soars like few albums. Without the weight of drums, bass, vocals, or even standard song structures in the traditional sense, Wong's guitar loops stack like a musical game of Jenga until they topple over, spilling out ear candy for  guitar nerds and more casual sonic adventurers alike. The high points reach for the same hopeful catharsis you might find on an Explosions in the Sky album, though they arrive with less dramatic swoops and more hyperactive histrionics. The most obvious musical parallels are Wong's previous projects, particularly Ecstatic Sunshine, but his style also hearkens back to the more playful work of Ian Williams before he left Don Caballero. Wong crafts a set of precise, mathy licks that warmly weave in and out of each other, and by adding no small amount of delay, makes his single instrument sound massive. When he reaches the fullest, richest set of polyrhythms he can piece together, the song peaks and he moves onto something new.

The trouble with this record is not a lack of brilliant climaxes, though; it's a lack of restraint. Infinite Love will be released physically as  a double LP, and the digital version contains two nearly identical records (a brother and sister side). Each begins and ends the same way, but they take different twists and turns in the middle—neither have any individual track titles. In theory, this allows the listener the option of choosing which version of the record they prefer. It's an interesting attempt at playing with the idea of an album, but with 80 minutes of pure guitar looping and delay pedal tricks (with only very occasional drum machines), it easily becomes tedious.

There are mountains of unique ideas on this record, and the best ones are really exceptional, but given that the self-imposed limitations on the album already create a certain amount of repetition, having tracks from the first disc actually repeat on the second disc seems remarkably unnecessary. Of course, an experimental, instrumental solo album is naturally going to come with a fair amount of concept-heavy self-indulgence. If you can make it past that, there are plenty of highlights. When Wong is nailing it, he does so epiphanically—it's like the otherworldly, intellectual feel of a Terry Riley composition that slowly rises up and takes you somewhere strange and exciting. Not too many folks reach those heights, and if getting there requires sitting through a few sections that feel a little too infinite, it just might be worth it.

Infinite Love is out today on Thrill Jockey.

Mingering Mike & The Big D: "There's Nothing Wrong With You Baby Pts. 1&2"
The first ever vinyl release from enigmatic D.C. soul musician/artist Mingering Mike. Originally put to tape by Mike and his cousin, Big D, in a bedroom, "There's Nothing Wrong With You Baby" is about as raw as you can get. The rhythm track is an afro pick slapped against a phone book. But the song's soulful message–encouraging a young girl to be unique–rings through. Packaging comes as originally designed by Mike, way back in 1969. All proceeds benefit Mingering Mike. A hot debut, to be sure.

Trans Am: What Day Is It Tonight?
Yeah, you took them for granted when they lived here, but now Trans Am has blown out of D.C. and taken it's vocoder with it. Were they joking all of the time, or only some of the time? It's hard to tell with instrumental rock music. Whatever the case, you can't see them play live every other weekend anymore, so this double live record should make a meaningful memento. The live take on Red Line's slow response slams. Expertly written liner notes tell the brutal truth about post-rock living. Thrill Jockey's website says the vinyl is sold out, but there might still be some copies drifting around the local record stores. Available digitally via the Thrill Jockey website.

Casper Bangs: "The Other Half" b/w "Queen of Hearts"
District-based striver Rob Pierangeli presses the best two songs from his debut EP to wax. "Queen of Hearts" pairs dreamy new romantic-vibes with an extended shoegaze space-out. The flip is darker and harder–noise guitar squalls and a tight bass-breakdown buoy tales of bartender suffering. On white vinyl in a white jacket with a braille logo. Decadent, for sure.

Felt Letters: "600,000 Bands" b/w "Lone Wolf-No Cub"
Ian Svenonius, Brendan Canty, and Tom Bunnell team up to deliver the most important musical statement of the last decade. Further details in last week's "One Track Mind" article.

We really like Mi Ami. Arts Desk contributer Aaron Leitko really really likes Mi Ami. So it's a good thing, then, that the noisy, experimental San Francisco group—which includes two D.C. ex-pats, former Black Eyes members Daniel Martin-McCormick and Jacob Long—will release its sophomore album, Steal Your Face, on April 13 on Thrill Jockey. The album's title notwithstanding, for some reason we're pretty sure this one won't sound like vintage Grateful Dead.

The trio's fuzzed-bass-and-monster drumming m.o. is a nod to that thinning brotherhood of post-punk musicians who highlight basement shows and fanzines (what are fanzines?), who haven't thought about wearing guyliner and going emo, who haven't dabbled in concept albums or made records where you need a Ph.D in Steve Reich to get. It's a throwback sound; the members modest well be wearing bootleg Fugazi T-shirts. (You definitely hear Fugazi in one of DD's older songs, "The Psychic"; the Jane Jacobs politics behind "Luxury Condos For the Poor" updates "Cashout.") All this means is that Double Dagger is the token rock band on just about any bill.

But don't let my lame comparison to Fugazi fool you. The band's sound is all it's own, having come from years of playing together. Double Dagger formed in 2002: bass guitar (Bruce Willen), that monster drumming (Brian Dubin) and singer/songwriting (Nolen Strals). Strals and Willen met in art school. Later, Dubin was replaced with drummer Denny Bowen.

This week we fired off some questions to the band via e-mail. The Q and A after the jump.

What have you guys been up today?

DENNY: I just woke up about 15 minutes ago. I put some coffee on. Bruce is probably drinking some somewhere. Nolen might have a hot chocolate though.

Why do you think Baltimore has such a fertile music scene? What do you think has made it so special?

DENNY: I think Baltimore has always been a fertile music scene and we recently had a great boom, which is undoubtedly really awesome. But I'm getting somewhat concerned because I don't see too many new bands forming. I see a number of new faces that have moved to Baltimore and have been drawn here for the artistic reasons, but I haven't seen much output from this wave.

Maybe the new output lies with other art forms, but I can't really comment on that. Also Baltimore is a small city and that is bound to breed a strong community. We actively fight to keep our arts and music scene alive and for the ability to support it. There is more crossover with bands and artists working with others that are coming from somewhere else entirely and still will have huge support from their peers. The specialness, I think, comes from a lack of shitty bands. But yeah, you want the short answer? Cheap rent.

Do you ever feel like the token rock band in Baltimore?

DENNY:  Maybe the loudest, but not the token rock band. I feel like we get called that at times, which makes us think we're doing something right. However, there have always been some great rock bands in Baltimore, going back to the start of Double Dagger to present times.

When you started writing More, did you have goals in mind on what you wanted the album to sound like?

DENNY: I think we wanted to be more powerful; we started writing these songs in late 2007 and I think we had less of a conscious idea of what we wanted the songs to sound like, we just played very much with one another, and not just playing at the same time.

I think More is one of the records that really stood out for me in that it doesn't have a lot of gimmicks–it's a rock record. A lot of indie bands seem to be straying from making rock or indie rock albums. I think it's difficult to make a good rock album–maybe more difficult than making a high concept freak folk record with loops and french horn parts. What do you think?

DENNY: Hey, more for us then! Seriously, I think a lot of bands are very timid when it comes to making a rock record. With technology today, it's somewhat difficult for bands not to indulge in its uses. We only wanted to capture our songs as best we could and flourish them up in subtle ways and having that sort of minimalist approach is what retains the quality, in my opinion. There's a place for everything, so the most difficult thing is being appropriate. It's easy to get caught up in genres, sub-categorization, and ghettoizing bands and we choose to not subscribe to any of that. Not that many other bands are, but to be honest, I don't know what "freak folk" is. Is it really freaky?

What was the hardest part about making More?

DENNY: Staying warm and avoiding being towed. Also, carrying all the equipment (including 3 bass cabinets) up and down like 6 flights of stairs really sucked. Recording the songs was mostly a smooth process, we knew them inside and out.

I think the drumming on the record is one of the most amazing things about More. Please praise the drumming. Do you think drums really make a band?

DENNY:  Totally! We wanted to make sure that the way the drums sounded on the record would be more like the way it sounds when you're standing in front of a drummer, and less like there are 3 mics on every angle of the drum. Additionally, Bruce and I have really synced up since we started writing the songs for More. There are only two instruments, so Bruce and I try to tastefully fill up any of the "space."

My father once told me that you can have a bad band with a good drummer and it can still sound good, but not the other way around. I think this statement holds true.

How do you think your sound has evolved? How do you think its evolved lyrically?

DENNY: I think the music has evolved in that we have thought less about what we wanted to sound like, and just played what we felt. As I said before, we focused more on complimenting one another's parts and how we can best serve each song. By doing this, I think its opened Nolen up to be more poetic and abstract with his lyrics.

NOLEN: Lyrically I dropped the art/design reference/metaphor thing a while back. It had run its course, and honestly I felt like it was holding me or us back some. Lyrically, there are still angry screeds here and there, but life's a little more complex at 30 than it is at 24, so what you write about just naturally becomes more complex. I'm not weaving intricate, literate, epics, but the point of view of the lyrics is more open and has more shades of gray, and less black and white than it sometimes was in the past. Of course there's still some of that more direct, antagonistic approach, because sometimes that's most effective.

This is for Nolen, I read somewhere that your parents are/were ministers? Where did you grow up? Did they have a church? What was growing up like?

NOLEN: Both of my parents have been United Methodist Ministers since the mid 80s, though my dad recently retired. I mainly grew up in small towns in the mountains of North Georgia, and they each served separate churches.

I don't think my upbringing was too different from that of most kids raised by a religious family in the South. My parents always were and still are very supportive of everything I do. My mom even let me have shows in the basement of her church-owned house. There was an awkward period in the 7th grade when I first told my parents I didn't believe in religion. But honestly my classmates were harder on me for that than my parents were.

A lot of kids stopped associating with me for that, but the metal kids started talking to me more.

How do you think that experienced effected you? How do you think it influenced your approach to songwriting and singing?

NOLEN: While I do not share their religious beliefs, I've always been inspired by my parents' conviction in their faith. I watched my dad face a lot of opposition and backhanded crap from the good-ol'-boy church political machine. He's a moving speaker and could have risen higher in the church had he toed the party line more, and his career visibly and financially suffered for following his heart instead of politics.

If there's any influence from my upbringing on what I do in the band, that's a huge one, speaking my mind about what I feel strongly about, no matter its popularity or what people may think of it. That and my leftist political leaning. My parents aren't 100% liberal, but they're certainly further left than most people ignorantly think southern Christians can be.

I read somewhere that you all played the Rock and Roll Hotel and the audience kinda sucked–what happened?

DENNY: Just was a very sparse audience, and we started kind of early. It was hard to gather back up in the drum world, but DC audiences have somewhat of a notoriety for being "stiff," and obviously our M.O. goes right against that.

I toured with the Dan Deacon ensemble this spring and when we played DC on that tour, people did go crazy and had a great time. Hopefully there will be more of that in DC in the future.

What do you hope the D.C. audience will do this time around when seeing you guys?

DENNY: Unfold their arms and slamdance!