lingua ignota butcher

Lingua Ignota Awakens a Sleeping Giant in New Song “Butcher of the World”

lingua ignota butcher

Sheer curtains are drawn, painting the room with a blueish gray light that allows you to see only the outline of your outstretched hand. It’s hard to recognize the appendage that vaguely flickers like a screen picking up static. The only recognizable sensation is the wood below your back, tingling from the vibrato ringing from an invisible loudspeaker. Such is the setting conjured in “Disease of Men,” the opening track on Lingua Ignota‘s 2017 debut Let the Devil of His Own Lips Cover Him. This five-part tour-de-force shatters like an arrow bursting through chiffon, narrowly skimming the heart — little did we know that this installment was only the beginning.

No matter the caution with which you proceed, “Butcher of the World” — a sneak peek posted Monday of Lingua Ignota’s highly-anticipated second album Caligula — is that fateful squeak of a floorboard that awakens the sleeping giant.

There is perhaps no other way than to speak of the classically trained vocalist and experimental instrumentalist, Kristin Hayter, than through extended metaphors. Pinpointing the source of sounds proves to be more difficult than catching lightning. A medley of distant opera, organ, and unearthly frequencies can be heard floating from a distant church room, but as each pew is searched and every doorway, scrutinized, ground zero remains unfound. In a time in which the concept of genre is becoming increasingly obsolete, Hayter has certainly come bursting through the seams of melancholic movements right on cue.

Hayter’s timely ingenuity is not limited to songwriting, however. Her thematic point of view is one that has rarely breached the mainstream conversation in arenas of heavy music (until now). While the archetype of demons overpowering all that is good and holy is a recurring visual and musical aesthetic, it has seldom been refracted through the searing vocals of a domestic abuse survivor. A thirst for vengeance is ultimately irrigated through the false prophets Sorrow and Alienation. In turn, tortured screams become spliced with the choir of one: an angel, freefalling. Alas, the cult of fear and flames delivered through decades of scorched depictions has been turned on its head.

The footsteps of impending doom welcome you at the gates of Hayter’s first full-length, 2018’s All Bitches Must Die. In this saga, boiling pitch starts bubbling up from every crevice of the walls, draining the last bit of blue-tinged light. The ambitious title track sits patiently in the album’s midsection – a weary soul caught in the sharp grips of its bookends.

As the newest chapter in Lingua Ignota’s journey remains to be revealed, “Butcher of the World” offers a promising glimpse. The most grandiose statement from Hayter to date, a rogue slaying of a not-so-gentle-giant is undertaken with the majesty one would expect of a royal ritual. While happy endings only tend to occur within the sanctity of fairy tales, justice is served as raw piano and violin ring in the demise of another day.

Where will our heroine end up once the last page brushes between fingertips? Only time will tell.

Caligula releases on July 19th via Profound Lore, and meanwhile you can also hear her voice on the new Full of Hell record. Follow Lingua Ignota on Facebook.

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