debut for legendary label Sub Pop<\/a><\/span><\/strong> \u2013 and it lands like a homecoming; to basics, to origin points, to the fertile ground from which the drone metal they have helped pioneer first crept into the world via Earth and the Pacific Northwest.\u00a0<\/p>\nNotably, there are no collaborators this time. As a duo, they strip things back\u2014but \u2018stripped-back\u2019 in the SUNN O))) universe doesn\u2019t mean understated. Quite the opposite: this is vast, grandiose music, built from layers upon layers of guitar, captured with an almost obsessive scale (reportedly close to 200 microphones). Notes themselves are sparse, even elusive\u2014but that\u2019s never been the point. This is music about texture, about space, about the physicality of sound itself. If music is about the space between the notes as Debussy said, SUNN O))) are explorers, inviting you to look deeper and longer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Opener \u2018XXANN\u2019 gestures toward familiar terrain before subtly warping it, threading field recordings and negative space through the duo\u2019s seismic churn. \u2018Glory Black\u2019 is the quiet revelation, its submerged piano adding a solemn, almost devotional hue. Often, SUNN O))) have relied on collaborators \u2013 the drums of Boris<\/strong>, the voice of Scott Walker<\/strong> \u2013 to provide a counterpoint to their seismic guitars; here, just a duo, the simple melancholic refrain of a piano feels almost revolutionary, and a strikingly emotional finale.\u00a0<\/p>\nAt over an hour, it\u2019s not casual listening. But SUNN O))) have always been about testing limits, pushing boundaries, (destroying speakers). That\u2019s precisely why the album works and why the band have endured:\u00a0\u2018SUNN O)))\u2019\u00a0feels like a reaffirmation\u2014of process, of power, and of why they remain darlings of the underground.<\/p>\n
8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\nWords: David Weaver<\/strong><\/p>\nfor fans of Earth, Anna Von Hausswolff, just sitting looking at concrete for hours on end\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n