Northern Liberties “Parallel Hell” (Roxborough Rants and Eels, July 2020)

Just before the beginning of the Great At Home of 2020, Justin offered a copy of Northern Liberties’ new LP to anyone who was willing to write a review. I put my hand up and into my mailbox came a copy of this most amazing record.

I listened and listened again, rapt. This record demands your full attention.

My promise of a write up slipped to the back of the queue as spring slipped into summer but it’s been nagging my conscience on and off and in line with a resolution to do more things (Karl, Judy Kankakee is next…), I’ll tell all of you who like music that’s fierce, swift, passionate, and relentless, this record has your name on it.

The sounds are maddeningly dense and delicate. The music is simultaneously punishing and sweet. Raging heavy grooves, distant shouted vocals, mathematical virtuosity which does not sacrifice passion for technique.

Philadelphia has always been a home for uncompromising musicians, souls going their own way for their own reasons . This record is so clearly born from desire and compulsion to follow a path of one’s own that even if it’s not your usual musical diet, it’s something which will make your life better by giving it a through listen.

The glorious artwork is a hint at what the record sounds like. Intricate, detailed, ornate.

My fingers are crossed that when live music returns to Philadelphia, we can meet up to see these guys play live. It will be amazing.

Thank you Mark and Justin and Kevin.”

– Eliot Duhan, Roxborough Rants and Eels

New Northern Liberties Album Available for Streaming & Purchase (The Deli, 9/16/19)

“A menacing psych/hard-rock heaviness engulfs on Parallel Hell, the latest LP from Northern Liberties. Spirited vocals and a relentless rhythm section create a consuming, contagious sound. It’s been over a decade and a half that Renaissance man Justin Duerr has been releasing material via this creative outlet. Duerr continues to demonstrate how he’s an unflinching, uncompromising musical force of nature in the Philly underground.”

Full article at http://philadelphia.thedelimagazine.com/41740/new-northern-liberties-lp-available-for-streaming-purchase

Parallel Hell LP

Released: August 16th, 2019

Title: Parallel Hell

Details: Limited to 250 records.
Splatter Vinyl
Packed in gatefold jackets with insert. With cover art work by Justin.
First 100 copies include remix cassette.

Label: Self-released

Tracks:

Side A
1. Property
2. Crushing Weight
3. Remains
4. Queen of 1,000 Worlds
Side B
1. Material Memory
2. Written on the Walls
3. Buried in Time
4. Hero Rat
5. The End of the World (Avengers)

Listen on the BC Page
Available now at the merch store at https://northernliberties.bandcamp.com/merch

“A musical keg of West Philly weirdo dynamite”: Reflections on two decades of the genre-defying Northern Liberties (The Key, 4/10/19)

by Yoni Kroll for WXPN/The Key.

“West Philly post-punk three piece Northern Liberties has been a band for so long that when they played their first show in February of 2000 the neighborhood they borrowed their name from was still a mostly forgotten blip on the radar. Fast forward almost two decades and the band — Justin Duerr on vocals and percussion, his brother Marc on drums, and their lifelong friend Kevin Riley on bass — are set to release their seventh album Parallel Hell later this year.”

Full article at https://thekey.xpn.org/2019/04/10/northern-liberties/