I get a perverse pleasure knowing people that hate us have to listen to even more songs’ — Jucifer mix hard rock with spite

Two-piece bands have become passé. Duos performing trashy garage-rock sans bass players have been done to death. Even the genre’s most respected talents are mere shadows of their former selves, collapsing under the weight of the gimmick.

What does Jucifer have to with any of this? Absolutely nothing. That’s the point — while comprising only singer and multi-instrumentalist G. Amber Valentine and fellow instrumentalist G. Edgar Livengood, the sum of its members is the only thing this Atlanta, Georgia band has in common with the aforementioned ones. Brandishing their musical weapons for over a decade, Jucifer was belting out sonic dirges long before bands started eradicating members in the name of being hip.

Those in the loop understand Jucifer has no reason to be associated with such banal trends, especially given their penchant for sonic girth and musical diversity. Respected and revered for their metallically bent artistry, their music is a constantly twisting entity that almost defies description, let alone classification. Dynamic, banshee-esque wailing and bottom-heavy grinds morph into angular, borderline-cacophonous dirges before deconstructing into beautifully serene, understated bouts of emotional angst, only to be built up again like some endless sonic rollercoaster. It’s no wonder many find the band somewhat hard to follow.

“We’ve always been too esoteric,” Valentine half jokes. “There’s only love us or hate us. No in-between. Some people get frustrated with us because they only like one aspect or the other, heavy or calm. I just tell them to make mix tapes of our stuff. When we do our own mix tapes, we’ll have Slayer followed by Herb Alpert. There needs to be ebb and flow, so it’s not one-dimensional.

“There’s a cold reality to know that the only way to be super-successful in a band would be to stay one-dimensional,” she continues. “That applies to life too: you can be a well-rounded individual and potentially turn people off or stuff yourself into a false persona that’s easier to accept and just please everyone. Every choice has its pitfalls. You’ll find happiness and unhappiness with both paths, but we’re happy because we’re fiercely individualist.”

This staunch eccentricity is best expressed on the band’s latest double-album, L’Autrichienne, a conceptual effort regarding the life and times of Marie Antionette and the French revolution. Recorded and mixed in a productive three-week stretch last year, L’Autrichienne finds Jucifer at their most explorative and confident. Initially skeptical of the notion of releasing a double album, Valentine admits that after years of recording and touring (the pair sold their brick-and-mortar home for the recreational vehicle they tour in to this day), Jucifer is reputable — or hated — enough to be self-indulgent.

“It’s a pretty egomaniacal step to take, but at this point, a lot of people have established if they love us or hate us,” she explains. “If they love us, they won’t mind having more songs, and I get a perverse pleasure about knowing people that hate us have to listen to even more songs. Why should I make it easier for them?”

In true artistic fashion, Valentine admits that the schematic for L’Autrichienne has been around since Jucifer’s inception, but realizing the full weight and dedication such a topic would require, the band shelved it until they became more stable. They honed their craft by attacking smaller, more palatable concepts on each successive release, although most people (fans included) haven’t always caught what’s going on. Eventually, the pair felt bold enough to tackle L’Autrichienne, and while Valentine hopes enthusiasts will get into the album’s subject matter, she believes that as long as they appreciate it on some level, Jucifer has done its job.

“I’ve wanted to tackle this theme for a long time and it was finally right to do it,” she says. “The way to understand L’Autrichienne is to know that we [pretend] our albums have imaginary movies that go along with [them], so they’re kind of the soundtrack or score to it. We thought our concepts were obvious in the past, but people haven’t always picked up on them. We felt it was important for people to know and understand what this one’s about. The emotional weight of the record requires knowing the story. That’s why instead of lyrics, you get explanations of what’s going on — but if people just want to listen to the music, that’s fine too.”