Lo-Ruhamah's Annointing

Any thoughts on Lo-Ruhamah's new album from 2017, Annointing?

It's a change in style, or at least tone, to a darker, more earthy black/death combo in the vein of Ulcerate. Still has hints of their natural quirkiness but generally is more straight ahead, given the style, to me.

The lyrics are pretty bleak, perhaps a struggle with faith or at least sin. Almost made me wonder whether they would still classify themselves as Christian but on a re-read the themes are evident. Poetically they're impeccable.

Not sure the change has produced as strong a work as The Glory of God but it's an intriguing listen.

Musically I really liked what I heard but the lyrics were pretty off-putting to me...  I only read through them once and that was a while ago, so maybe I should check it out again.

Their first album is one I really wanted to like but could just never get into it.  (That being said... if anyone's interested in owning it, I have a like-new copy for sale!)

I missed this one.  I liked their first two, so I'll have to give this a download and listen.

Seems more like lyrically about mysticism now as opposed to Christianity.

^Sure seemed like it to me too.

I had a hard time listening to this because of the lyrics. I wanted to take it as a downward spiral of man (perhaps Satan?) trying to deify himself, turning from God. It seemed like the album showed a progression of the despair that ensued. Personally it is one of the darkest albums lyrically I've ever experienced. I think if you read it in the manner above you'll see it though.

The song Corridor shows the shift where the story breaks. There is a painful self-realization that the character is not "I Am", yet he hates that truth and presses on in hatred for that light (John 3:19-20), reviling God for allowing the him the thought process (The line: "Did not you put this pit before me?"). He blames God. The song itself ends with the truth of God being pushed back, denied (Romans 1:18) and man exalting himself. By the end of the the album the character has accepted this path, lusted for power to become his own god and convinced himself of his own deity, which is swallowed in the darkness of his own creation. 

Of course I could be way off. 

Corridor:

But the light from the holy response is too bright 
and I will not see my own glory eclipsed 
nor my shame come into visible spectrum 
nor acknowledge my monstrosity as having been witnessed. 

I AM NOT. 
Who are You to reveal this truth of myself? 
Did You not put this pit before me? 
Anyone but I am guilty. 

Oh, how I long for You in the pit of my soul, 
but my mouth fills with bile 
in the glory of Your presence. 

Yes, my hands still clench the fetish 
that I fashioned from amorous matter 
into my own refection 
in the midst of internal darkness. 
You see it. 

And I can see the corridor before me 
extending away, 
my own life fading 
and love abandoned. 
But no, no, no! 
I will not. 

Reject that thought. 
Not Your way. 

I close my eyes and grind my teeth. 
When I look again, 
let the sight be gone 
and my own kingdom coming. 
Let only internal projections 
be reflected in the faces 
and the objects I see before me. 

I AM GOD. 
NAUGHT ELSE IS. 
Remove all greatness 
so the small can be great. 
Blind all eyes 
so they think I am king. 
Block out light; 
let my impotence be hidden. 
Destroy all minds 
so the fool seems a sage. 
Spread false hope 
that allegiance is rewarded. 
Magnify my weakness 
until it breeds fear.

Seems like a good interpretation to me!  Interesting lyrics, but I'm amazed you put in the time.

I'd be surprised if this was still a Christian band.

Here's a post-release interview with the guitarist;

  https://addergebroed.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/addergebroed-interview-lo-ruhamah-english.pdf

They don't claim to be a Christian band but they don't reject it outright either.

Relevant quotes;

There’s not really a driving “philosophy” behind “The glory of God”. That whole album was simply rooted in our spiritual experiences and was a cathartic way for us to exorcise a lot of things that were heavily weighing on us at the time. We’re all in pretty different places a decade later as we’ve all changed and grown as people. Our thoughts, questions, and priorities today don’t match what they were during that time, but I know we all stand behind that album and are very glad to have had the opportunity to make it.


[Anointing's] lyrical themes [are]: the dissolution of reason and the human mind, enlightenment, desperation, self-destruction, will, visionary experiences, cosmic ruination, and the lines between humanity and divinity.

For me, the debut was [...] sprawling lyrics about the vastness of the universe and our place in it, our relationship to the Ultimate, etc. This new album [...] to me it communicates visionary experience and religious ecstasy, but caught in a hazy swirl of hallucinogenic pharmakeia. It’s frantic and immediate. The first album is pensive, and this one is unsettling.

Not wishing to be hard on them, but in some way I have higher standard for Christian-based bands than secular ones.

Angry Metal Guy has a review that's spot-on in my opinion;

  http://www.angrymetalguy.com/lo-ruhamah-anointing-review

Lo-Ruhamah felt like one of those rare Christian bands with enough character and identity to stand amongst bands in the general market. In that respect Anointing is a step backwards into genericism, but hey it's still quality stuff.

P.S. In searching for these I note the album is spelled with a single n "Anointing"

How can they be characterized as a Christian band if there is no driving philosophy behind their music?  Christianity is a philosophy.  It defies logic.

Perhaps this is only because I've been reading 1st Samuel, but this seems to describe the fall of Saul quite well. The Davidic epic is great fodder for songwriters.

For me, lyrics are critically important. When bands have questionable content or I can't tell if they've veered from the faith it causes me to dig. Sometimes I dig and they're apostate, other times they've just become more subtle or just changed their approach. I wanted to like and listen to this album but I had such a hard time finding value in the lyrics. I felt like I had to dig and give them the benefit of the doubt. Even diving in I haven't found a great reason to listen to this. If my interpretation is correct I can appreciate the view, especially with the more prevalent atheistic bend to our culture these days but it still doesn't do much for me.

Maybe that sounds foolish but when I'm not edified or moved by the lyrics in any way I tend to not have a heart for the music either.

I will say it's highly philosophical though. To me it's extremely deep! When I was digging I found that the lead vocalist Jonathan is a PhD student in philosophy. I think sometimes people get in their own head with that. This album, lyrically, sounds like that.

Frozen Fire wrote:I had a hard time listening to this because of the lyrics. I wanted to take it as a downward spiral of man (perhaps Satan?) trying to deify himself, turning from God. It seemed like the album showed a progression of the despair that ensued. Personally it is one of the darkest albums lyrically I've ever experienced. I think if you read it in the manner above you'll see it though [...]

This is Jonathan of LR. Frozen Fire's reading of the lyrics is very close -- close enough to say it's accurate. I really appreciate the close, attentive reading. 

It would be a mistake to associate the speaker in the lyrics with my own (or our own) voice personally, as if the lyrics were simply articulating my own viewpoint. In a sense, everything in the lyrics has come from personal experience, at least in the sense that I've found those motives buried in my own heart. The difference is that the lyric's speaker has made a decision to turn away from God in a way that I have not.

Roughly speaking, I closely identify with the viewpoint of the lyrics up through track five, but track six begins a trajectory that is different from my own. When I came to the edge of the pit, in the last moments before I spilled "over the edge into the hole" and called out to God, I did not reject His response but gave Him a part of myself that I had always held back before, I think. The album, however, carries out the trajectory I was on. What if I had continued down the direction I was going? More generally, where would that path end up when taken to its ultimate logical conclusion?

The lyrics end with just that conclusion: when the Logos is rejected, even the logic of linguistic sense/grammar can't be expected to hold. He IS the unfailing Logic through which all coheres. The cost of trying to take His place is that the house, as it were, will fall apart. The evil in the human heart is revealed in its refusing to change, despite the consequences to itself and all else. Think about the end of the movie The Boxtrolls.

For my part, this album is something like a mirror held up. The world is largely occupied with telling itself lies about its moral reality. We're not THAT bad -- as bad as that other thing or person -- so therefore we must be good. Black Metal, in my view, largely performs this very role: it makes concrete and visceral the spiritual condition that the world is trying desperately to cover up and hide with contouring makeup. Black Metal at its truest, whether it knows it or not, holds up a mirror and says, "This is the truth of the world." It's why BM is so often apocalyptic. The most recent Deathspell Omega interview with Bardo Methodology is a good example of that. It's 23:58 on the doomsday clock.

The lyrics to Anointing are not the personal spiritual vision and intimate truth of my own heart -- thankfully. And I am thankful both for the fact that the lyrics were hard to write and that I listened to my wife's counsel and didn't hold back in the full depth of darkness that the truth would reveal. 

This album was written from a fully and unequivocally Christian perspective. I reserve nothing in my commitment to Christ, even with the gritted teeth of the dedicated soul seen often in Black Metal: blood for blood, the unrepentant commitment of the blasphemed soul, but held toward the Lord rather than away from Him -- unwavering in my commitment to the Lord and defiance toward the spirit of the world. CHAIN ME TO HIM. In that sense, it could be said to be a Christian album. But I wouldn't say that it's a Christian album, really, because I don't think it's written for Christians, and I would never recommend it to a Christian (especially a young one) who is looking for Christian music to influence them in the way they should go -- to uplift, encourage, or teach in a direct way.

I don't think that generally a Christian audience is the right audience for this album, even though it was written from an unequivocally Christian perspective. Indeed, I don't think this album could have been written at all except from a truly Christian perspective. Perhaps for a Christian who is veering away from the Lord there is some value in showing the end result of a certain trajectory -- and, like the way the last song ends, inspiring a nausea in the listener that repels them from the direction being depicted. 

I hope this makes sense. I know I'm kind of necroing a thread, but I came across this post a while ago and wanted to respond to it. I appreciate that someone picked up the basic spirit and intention behind the lyrics, and I'm not at all bothered that even Frozen Fire had difficulty with the lyrics and didn't feel edified by them. I would hope not. There are upcoming projects (yet to be revealed) whose purpose is more to express my actual spiritual core. The Anointing lyrics, however, were written in hopes that they would repulse someone -- toward a good end. But they were written from a fully Christian commitment and viewpoint. I am a PhD student in a philosophy-related field (semiotics), but I have not and am not veering from my faith, nor are the other two LR members, in my estimation. In fact, I hope God does not call me to work full time in academics. I would much rather move into an area where I can more explicitly devote my energies into things that openly glorify God -- directly rather than obliquely. 

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever unto ages of ages.

Welcome to CMR Jonathan and thank you for the in-depth explanation of the lyrics! The samples of Anointing's music I heard are amazing but the lyrics gave me pause. Quite honestly, this makes me want to dust off my copy of The Glory Of God and track down a copy of Anointing. Thanks again and welcome to our little community here!

I appreciate that. Every once in a while I dust off Glory of God myself and think, "Oh, hey, this is pretty good."

I probably won't post much, though it's possible I will sometimes. I mainly wanted to respond to the post I saw. I think a lot of people didn't really know what to do with this album, non-Christians included, which doesn't really bother me, I guess. 

Our most recent track will be appearing soon on a Voidhanger project, and it might be interesting to see how people perceive it -- whether they'll pay attention to the lyrics or respond in a surface way. I mean both Christians and secular folks. Lyrically, in my mind it's our most explicit, unambiguous, and openly Christian lyrics to date, but it also communicates through tarot archetypes because the project as a whole is a collaboration where many different great bands (like Dodsengel and Skaphe, if I remember correctly) were assigned a tarot card to interpret through their own lens. Since Luciano (the guy who runs I, Voidhanger) likes to ruffle feathers, he gave us the Devil card because he knows many people would resent that card being given to Christians rather than Satanists/occultists. 

The end result is what I think are our strongest lyrics to date and the most valuable for pointing toward truth if anyone is willing and paying attention. The first stanza came to me in a dream, and most of the rest of it flowed out quickly once I woke and started writing. We will see. 

I suspect most Christians will simply listen to the track online since the release itself comes with an original tarot deck drawn based on each band's interpretation/perspective as communicated to the artist. Obviously this will strike many Christian metal fans as over the line, and that's their prerogative, but there are things I want to communicate that must be spoken in certain places rather than others. I'm not going to be socially deterred by what I think fellow Christians who don't know me will think. I have to be accountable to my Lord for what I do and don't say in the avenues He opens up.

Honestly, I truly appreciate the reply and it helps very much! Having context to the perspective will allow me to enjoy the album, as I do (pardon this connection if it doesn't resonate) C.S. Lewis's "The Last Battle" and "That Hideous Strength" which at some points test these levels of depravity, the despair and even the grotesque nature of the abondonement of the Divine and the deification of man. In that, I do appreciate the darkness of the view because of the subject and the thought and poetic nature of the telling. It's fitting and very powerful. I think you achieved your aims very well!

I tried to be gracious and even in my response to the original post, trying to be wary of misrepresenting people I did not know and their views. I'm glad I did not do a great disservice to the project. Your labelmates Panegyrist I tried to take in a similar manner. I know Elijah did the art but beyond that both of you take an admirable amount of thought and consideration into the lyrics of your work. That in itself makes both of your work attractive and brings it to a level or art and even literature I can appreciate. It's the reason why I will listen to LR, Panegyrist, and A Hill To Die Upon even though I am not necessarily edified by the lyrics. Each have "necessary" views.

Thank you again for the response and what you do! It's much appreciated!

I don't mind your drawing a connection to Lewis. It's far from an insult to have something you make bring Lewis to someone's mind. I actually haven't read That Hideous Strength, but that phrase is beautiful, so I think I'll get a copy, especially given your description. 

I appreciate what you said, and I hope we did achieve our aims. At the very least, its being powerful means we didn't make something flat. It was a long and difficult road to get that album out (the music was written and recorded in like 2008 or something), and I had to reapproach the lyrics more than once. In an earlier draft, I was holding back, and like I said, my wife talked to me about it and told me to push it to where it needed to go.

It was also partly cathartic/confessional since the worst things (especially up through track five) are things that I know within myself that I did, at least in spirit. The lyrics were drawn from personal experience and my own descent into spiritual darkness. I did things that let demonic forces into my life and took things to intense places. As I said, the difference between me and the speaker is that when I came to what felt like a final decision place, on the verge of losing God (and all life, all love), I found that in my heart I really did love Him and didn't want to lose Him or the love I shared with people within Him. In a sense, it's as simple as that. The golden cord did not break, nor did I ever want it to. 

You were gracious in your original post, and that's also part of why it stood out to me. It was a good faith response, and your reading was correspondingly insightful. It's nice to feel like someone is understanding what you were doing on some level. 

The connection to Panegyrist is a good one, too, and not just because Elijah did the cover art. He and I have been close friends and spiritual brothers for years now, and I initially asked him to try doing cover art for Anointing because of trouble we had been having with our previous artist(s). He hadn't done any covers yet, but I'd seen some of his work, and I knew his spiritual and philosophical acuity; we were on a very similar page, so I asked him to do it, and the result was fantastic. The demand for his work in the BM/occult/esoteric metal world has blown up for a reason.

Actually, keep your eye out for upcoming (relatively soon) collaborations with Elijah/Panegyrist -- a couple of different things. We're not ready to announce anything yet, but it has the potential to be something powerful. We are making ourselves available to the Master for something that may be quite different from what Christians in this music generally make. Some very interesting things are happening both musically and spiritually behind the scenes. I don't consider that it will explicitly be either in the context of Christian metal or of secular metal -- not as Elijah and I conceive of them, at least. The only thing that I'm interested in doing is glorifying Christ; many other (social) boundaries are not my concern, nor are we restricting what He can or will do by our social expectations or preexisting categories, in a sense. Between the usual poles of catering to a Christian audience and trying to proselytize the secular metal world, there is a third option (you could maybe say) -- turn our gaze away onto the Lord Himself, and become a stained glass window through which He can shine His light as He will. And in order to do that, we will want to be moving into whatever places the moving into needs to be. Let the light go where it will, as it were.

"If I be lifted up, I will draw all people to Myself."

Temple of Blood wrote:How can they be characterized as a Christian band if there is no driving philosophy behind their music?  Christianity is a philosophy.  It defies logic.

As a side note, I'll just address this question and say that Matthew didn't say there was no driving philosophy at all behind the band or its members (a kind of complex question) but rather that there was no driving philosophy behind the album The Glory of God. Not as such. There were driving philosophies and motives for us personally (to which Christianity was always central), but the album wasn't organized according to a philosophy as such. We were mostly focused on our existential and spiritual crises/struggles, so personal catharsis  (or pressing "emotional" need) was a more immediate motive. We were struggling to hold onto our faith, but we were also struggling to hold ONTO our faith. It's a difference from people I've known whose whole process of struggling with their faith has been to find a way to get away from God "in good conscience" so they can do whatever it is they want to do or pursue. 

For myself, I never ceased to identify personally as a Christian, but I was also deeply mixed up in a lot of stuff as a result of God wanting some things from me (and to occupy certain realms of my heart) that I simply found myself unwilling or unable to give. As a result, all manner of chaos, spiritual confusion, despair, and so forth increasingly swallowed me up. It wasn't that I stopped believing in God; it felt more like He stopped existing TOWARD me -- this is only a figure of speech since I lack the language to describe it. The distance was there because of me, but He also gets His response to our choices. 

Deprived of my ability to really FEEL God's presence like I once had, I leaned hard into Black Metal, for the evil and spiritual darkness I found there was unquestionably real. In a way that may seem strange, it was a way to preserve my faith at that time. Atheism (naturalism) wasn't possible to me because there was a real presence of evil in front of me and all around me. A turning point came for me around the time that I came across Diane Vera's instructions to the aspiring theistic Satanist for exorcizing the Holy Spirit. The crisis (perhaps horror) to me was that my spirit revolted against that prospect, for I seriously did not want such a thing, but I could find within myself the perceivable life trajectory where I could get to that point where I would be willing and able to do such a thing -- perhaps not then, no, but in 6 months? Or several years? 

It wasn't long after that that I was staring at the blank wall one day, feeling the crushing attack of black despair about to take hold of me (a truly terrible experience), hoping that if I just stared at the wall and didn't move that it might not take hold. Something (a realization?) broke in on me that NOTHING was worse than THIS. Anything was better than this. So I cast myself at the feet of the Lord, surrendered my hold on the darkness and a restricted part of my heart, and discovered that without intending to, I had embraced certain aspects, beliefs, or the spirit of Satanism without having done so explicitly and confessionally. 

I hadn't realized it, but I should have. It seems obvious to me now that it's impossible to not be influenced when you do things like go watch Inquisition play live, sing all the lyrics to all the songs (wanting to mean it in the moment but not always), get bled on by people cutting themselves (and embrace that fact for its potency), and walk away without being affected. Or take hallucinogens and lay in the darkness all night listening to Black Metal alone, still affected by the deception that "opening yourself up" as such is of inherent spiritual value. Aided by hallucinogens, isolation, black metal, and certain sins I pursued habitually and with escalation (sometimes for their negative influence itself), I encountered some very real spiritual realities, but they were most certainly malevolent. Many of these experiences (and the things encountered within that darkness) contributed to the presentation of the perspective found in the lyrics of Anointing.  

Yet despite all of this, there was always still a desire to love and serve God, and I never ever spoke with my mouth that God doesn't exist or rejected Christ either verbally or via my internal intentions. I held back from that very purposefully, and I never wanted to cross those lines. I did some insane stuff, but there was always a desire to remain connected to Him. This is visible even on the first EP (MCD), where I was purposeful about having the lyrics present that were in "He awoke and came to me while I was sitting shiva" -- which is also the case with "Shear Jasub (a remnant will return)". Lo-Ruhamah as a name itself means one separated from God but with a promise of restoration; Lo-Ruhamah becomes Ruhamah.

Better the bad son who returns to the father from his prodigality in repentance than the "good" son who turns his back on the father because of his own so-called faithfulness and righteousness.

Thank you for this explanation.

I'm actually rediscovering your music at the moment, and with this explanation about the lyrics it will be a completely different experience.

Progton wrote:Thank you for this explanation.

I'm actually rediscovering your music at the moment, and with this explanation about the lyrics it will be a completely different experience.

You're welcome, and I hope you can get at least something useful out of it. If you do, I'd be interested to hear your response to hearing it in this light.

I can appreciate the lyrics. Illuminating the dark side of the faith, or describing the further aberration of the faith.
I can also experience it as a kind of warning not to get too far into 'evil'.

I love to read that your faith in Christ is still there.
And I look forward to new work of Lo-Ruhamah

I ordered Anointing on CD and am listening to it now.  Great stuff.  Thanks again for coming by and explaining the lyrics - as well as opening up to your very personal history of going down such a dark path.  I'm grateful you didn't go any further than you did!

This thread has given me a great opportunity to go back and listen to this with fresh ears again. Such a great album with an unorthodox style and a terrifying atmosphere to match the lyrical content. Loving it! Glad this came back!

^Agreed!  I've also been enjoying listening to The Glory Of God with "fresh ears" as you say too.  I just got notification that my Anointing CD shipped.