*cue the drones*
As a gruesome wall of fog descended upon the crowd this Monday night crowd packed into the capacious Roundhouse of Camden, the unnerving anticipation built for the messianic group Sunn O))) hailing from Washington state. After almost two decades of crowning their unique and minutiae genre encompassing drone and doom metal over their line of 9 LPs, this group fronted primarily by Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson at last arrived into the near-sold-out doors of this stoic building impressively encapsulating their foreboding monolithic force of doom.
From the very first stroke of O’Malley’s scathingly-distorted guitar to the last, Sunn proved relentless in their wall-of-sound dronings - enticingly grasping the gaze of all us mere, innocent bystanders. As each of their equally-brutal yet transcendental songs merged into one another, the ethereal nature of this droning music somewhat oxymoronically intensified with each biding minute that passed.
Dressed in robed garments and etched with hollow faces, the cult surrounding tonight’s proceedings was undeniably inviting. Sonically, too, the exclusion of any percussion or vocals amongst their repertoire brought our gaze even further into the fray as we sought after sonic regularities and rhythms buried amongst this brutal wreckage of frequencies. This may not have proven to be a listening experience for just anyone, however, it brought about a personally unique listening and visual experience - one which imminently bid me into Sunn’s inescapable thread of gurgling distortions enrapturing the undivided attention of their devoted cult.
Plunging further into the decay of such sonic melodies, further measures of dissonant hypnotism were taken - namely in the form of brass incorporations. As the sonic flares of a single trombonist shone through the monolithic powers of such wallowing distortions exuded from their cacophony of guitars, the additional emboldened layer intensified this ethereal landscape as well as the Darth Vader-esque lingering smoke squeezing its intoxicating grip on us all.
And with a ubiquitous raising of their fists, Sunn O)))’s set was ultimately concluded after an odyssean 2-hour long set. The manipulation of our minds by the interminable nature of this band’s performance was undeniably palpable as the hypnotically regular distortion blares were met with such religious support amongst this cult. Whilst the evident qualms against Sunn’s lack of sonic diversity and instrumentation on stage proved significantly pertinent, this was a showcasing of metal which hadn’t remotely been witnessed prior by myself. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect for tonight was the complete lack of drones amidst this sea of transcendental drone metal enacted by their cult leaders, Sunn O))).
7/10
Sunn O)))'s latest 9th LP, Pyroclasts, is out now and can be found here.
All photos are courtesy of Paul Grace, whose work can be found here.
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