Sunn O)))
The WHITE albums SOUTHERN LORD
Experimental metallers’ mid-00s pair, now with even more bowel-loosening bottom end.
In 2007, Q magazine ranked WHITEBOX, the 2006 reissue of Sunn O)))’s third and fourth albums, the 18th loudest album of all time, just ahead of AC/DC’s Back In Black. Whether the editors were referring to the terrifying phantasmagorical avant-metal spokenword sludge and bell-like resonance of 2003’s doom-drone classic WHITE1 or the raging tinnitus caused by Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson’s full-out sonic deconstruction on the (mostly) instrumental follow-up, 2004’s dronemetal masterwork WHITE2, is a moot point. Crank the volume past halfway on either and you won’t be experiencing much in the way of critical faculties for weeks.
Sunn O))) were formed in Seattle by O’Malley and Anderson in 1988 and have been pushing at the limits of sonic experimentism and bass frequencies ever since. They have an aesthetic and sound all their own, and, frankly, it’s horrifying.
Both WHITE albums were recorded at the same 2002 session (originally intended to be acoustic) at Fontanelle’s Magnetic Park studios in Portland, Oregon.
WHITE1 (9/10) features Julian Cope reciting pagan occult poetry across half of the opening 26-minute track My Wall, and was notable for initially being released as a three-sided LP featuring an embroidered pillowcase and sleeping pill. The pill was hardly necessary – this is music as mega-Nitrazepam, a hazy somnambulist walk through decaying, heavily distorted, slowed-right-down stoner metal; Black Sabbath, minus any of the features that make them recognisably Black Sabbath. The highlight is undoubtedly The Gates Of Ballard, with its speaker-shredding bass frequencies, which opens with a Norwegian folk poem sung by Runhild Gammelsaeter of Thorr’s Hammer. The godlike genius of Joe Preston (Melvins, High On Fire) also features.
WHITE2 (8/10) stars Mayhem’s Attila Csihar on hissing corpse-breath vocals across the ambient droning death knell of Decay 2 [Nihils’ Maw], a track that seems to last an infinity. BassAliens, meanwhile, features a DOD Buzz Box effects pedal designed to imitate the sound of The Melvins’ King Buzzo.
These reissues coincide with the 20th anniversary of Southern Lord, the label Sunn O))) founded. They’re on 180g white vinyl, in gatefold sleeves, and each includes an A1 poster with portraits of the band from the period. And, true to form, the records come remastered with even broader frequency response, so the hiand low -end extremes are more extreme and the lush mids more lush. In other words, even fucking louder.