SUNN O))) - Sunn O)))

Eternity has always hovered over the dark symphonies of Sunn O))), conjured by colossal, pitch-black drones built on monstrous guitars. For this self-titled album, their first full-length for Sub Pop, they embrace the colossal scale that suits them best: six extended tracks, among which a pair of 18-minute monoliths stand out. Working at the edges of their signature sound, they reforge their language in more lyrical and, at times, accessible directions, without betraying its foundations.

The undisputed protagonists remain the guitar drones: thunderous, terrifying, boundless. Anyone familiar with the band will find their trademark unchanged and as evocative as ever. Over these foundations, though, the black priests of metal merge the cinematic ideas of "Black One" with the mystical undercurrent of "Monoliths & Dimensions" to offer a new key to reading their otherworldly drones. Field recordings surface, along with more pronounced melodic elements, though still filtered through the band's usual musical framework.

"XXANN" kicks off with an unusually high-pitched feedback rooted in noise tradition, before plunging into a damp abyss of drones and rain sounds. The rest of its 18 minutes unfolds as a fresh dirge of distorted, colossal guitar, punctuated by searing, whistling surges. The palette is fairly broad on "Does Anyone Hear Like Venom?" too, with sharp squeals and noise-laced wails accompanying the drone; and that closing passage sure sounds suspiciously like a guitar solo, doesn't it?

The dark liturgy of "Butch's Guns" unfolds in a more conventional fashion, at least for the first ten of its 14 minutes, before the guitar veers into an almost blues direction, monstrous and distorted as it may be, while feedback occupies the upper end of the sonic spectrum, acting as a blinding light in the deepest night.

A second 18-minute track, "Mindrolling," perhaps misses the chance to expand the album's language even further, except in its more chaotic, stormy finale. The infernal maelstrom that opens "Everett Moses" makes up for it, a deafening tangle from which a slow, menacing, gargantuan march emerges. Slowly, though, a nuance can be felt, a sign of life, a spark that sounds like a dawn of cosmic proportions, crystallized in the closing riff, in some ways definitive: it crashes headlong into a wall of noise.

The closing "Glory Black" is set to become the closest thing to a hit that such an ascetic band could ever conceive. Played at triple their usual speed - meaning merely slow rather than superhumanly glacial - their metal regains a clear melodic dimension, a rhythm, even... a groove. It's the culmination of decades spent deconstructing the electric guitar, finally restored to a more traditionally rock role, yet within an avant-garde, abstract, instrumental context: a piano rains down bleak notes, while sinister rustlings hint at anguished tension.

After years of somewhat lackluster releases, "Sunn O)))" is a new ritual that extends the liturgy of a band still capable of creative evolution. Nothing here rewrites their role in the darkest, most deafening music of the past few decades, though. One might call it a rebirth, but, to quote Lovecraft, "that is not dead which can eternally lie." A gorgeous cover featuring a Mark Rothko painting, currently on display in Florence: listening to the album during a visit is highly recommended, at least until the chance arises to hear the new tracks live.

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04/04/2026