Sunn O))) may not have invented drone metal, that credit goes to fellow Washingtonians Earth, but the group, founded in Seattle in 1998, have sure as hell perfected it. The influential duo of Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson have, over nearly 30 years, created some of the heaviest, most unique, and transcendental contributions to the increasingly amorphous sphere of metal.
The self-titled Sunn O))) is the band’s debut for Sub Pop, and their first full-length release since 2019’s twin albums Life Metal and Pyroclasts. Like its closest chronological relatives in the Sunn catalogue, it is a gargantuan, monolithic slab. As punishingly visceral and physical as anything in their singular body of work, Sunn O))) is a rumbling, growling behemoth, one that once again pushes further into our understanding of sound as a physical, living force than most recorded music.
As is customary, the band’s sonic landscape is built on the unhurried churn of down-tuned, distorted guitar. Riffs, if we can call them that, unfurl with precision and purpose, often stretching beyond ten minutes across five of the album’s six tracks. The 18-minute opener, XXANN, hums, drones, and gurgles with foreboding intent, before sinewy, spine-tingling squeals of overdriven guitar briefly cut across its lumbering path.
Despite its sheer volume and the attritional demands it places on listeners, the experience of Sunn O)))’s music is not unlike ambient music as pioneered by Brian Eno. The difference lies in the environments it evokes. Rather than spaces of calm or the everyday, Sunn O))), akin to the work of drone pioneer Eliane Radigue, conjure something far more ungraspable and ominous. Invasive and enveloping drones soundtracking desolate, infernal landscapes, closer to psychological or elemental extremes than anything recognisably human.
The rippling, deeply unnerving Butch’s Guns is another triumph. It moves like a giant striding across rivers, lakes, and mountains, lurching, leering. There’s an investigative quality to it, though never without destruction. As a strobing riff emerges, so too do piercing sirens of feedback and distortion. Frequently during the course of the album the result is that of a warped sonic reality, where listening induces a kind of auditory hallucination. Was that a voice? Water? Amp hiss? A tape loop? Birds chirping? Bagpipes? At times, it is exactly what it seems as O’Malley and Anderson incorporate field recordings here, folding environmental sounds into their studio recorded landscape. The surreal tension comes from never quite knowing what is “real.”
The duo deepen this atmosphere on the aptly titled Mindrolling, the album’s central long-form meditation and a further demonstration of their command of dark ambient. On the penultimate Everett Moses, the sound creeps to a sludgy crawl, with crushing guitar tones seeping like viscous lava. Bubbling, coagulating, curdling. If Everett Moses is molten rock, then closing track Glory Black opens with the volcano itself, an inferno, and arguably the album’s strongest piece. It begins with the record’s clearest nod to classic doom metal riffage, before dissolving, vapour-like, into an unexpected piano interlude. It’s the closest the album comes to recognisable melody, though no less chilling than what preceded it.
Given the nature of Sunn O)))’s approach, there is little that resembles traditional song structure. This is music that exists entirely on its own terms. It’s about texture, atmosphere and immersion. And like the Mark Rothko paintings that adorn its cover, Sunn O))) is a voyage into a blurred, abstracted psychological state. A skewed, nightmarish reality. An entrancing void.
Sunn O))) - Sunn O))) is out now on vinyl & CD.
