The Inarguable: Liturgy, Chelsea Wolfe and Ides of Gemini at The Echo

This past Saturday at The Echo I witnessed a fairly varied lineup of three pretty damn good acts: Ides of Gemini, Chelsea Wolfe, and, headliners Liturgy.

Ides of Gemini is a three piece featuring vocalist/bassist Sera Timms (also of Black Math Horseman), guitarist J. Bennett (also a contributing writer of Decibel) and recently acquired drummer/backing vocalist Kelly Johnston. They play a sort of mellow, doom tinged rock/metal accompanied by the hauntingly beautiful vocals of Sera and Kelly. To put it simply, the performance was excellent, and managed to convey the chilling atmosphere present on their ep The Disruption Writ without any difficulty.

Just as Earth was touring with Angelo Spencer et al, another sort of seemingly odd pairing was occurring; however, as most of you know, Liturgy appeals to a more indie esque crowd, and I suppose Chelsea Wolfe's music does as well. Chelsea Wolfe is a dark blend of experimental sort of folkish indie rock (search for her on Youtube, I’m not the best with throwing around genre tags). Regardless, I was really excited to see her (along with the accompanying band) band play. From the beginning I loved their performance, though I may be a little biased due to the fact that they opened with my favorite song (Advices & Vices) and continued with an great set list.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with Liturgy, or perhaps moreso familiar with Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s transcendental black metal proclamations. Now, I’m not fond of those by any means, but then again, let’s just remember what Varg Vikernes recently stated in his essay War in Europe: Part I - Cui bono?: “How can he list all the problems caused by different Jews in our history and yet fail to mention even one of them with a single word in his manifest?” So, to put it simply, if you’ve ignored Liturgy because of what Hunter said, then get out of your shell and listen to Renihilation and Aesthetica, as they are very good, as is their live performance. The intensity of the sound live came out very well, however the intensity of the band members, with the exception of drummer Greg Clark, seemed sort of lacking.