Sunn O))) - Life Metal

After the relatively disappointing briefness and mildness of 2015’s Kanon (and the similar disappointment of some of their collaborative albums like Scousedaround then as well), Sunn O))) return with a more characteristically sprawling offering of their signature amplifier-worshipping droning. With four tracks extending to almost 70 minutes, it feels like the Sunn O))) of Monoliths and Dimensions is starting to come back. That being said, the relatively big roll-out this album got and the critical acclaim being slathered upon it feel a bit unrepresentative of the work Sunn O))) actually seem to have put in to this album.

I’ve never been aboard the Sunn O))) hate train that so many anti-hipster, gatekeeper metalheads seem to be on, but I’m also not the biggest Sunn O))) fan in the world and I understand where a lot of the frustrated and confused backlash against the band’s lauding by the likes of Pitchfork comes from. While the simplifying notion that Sunn O))) essentially gets a ton of praise for doing nothing but record amp feedback is frustratingly reductionist itself, there are plenty of instances within the band’s catalog where that assessment isn’t that far off. And I’m not the type of person to be principally against something like drone metal (demanding groove, death, black, or thrash or nothing else); in fact, I’ve grown more open to and appreciative of the likes of doom metal and stoner metal over the past few years.

The problem with Sunn O))) quite often is that they’re often very content to let the guitars do everything for them for spells way too long at times without doing much of anything creative meanwhile. I know it’s the basic bitch pick, but that’s why Black One is my favorite Sunn O))) album. The band makes good use of the creative talents of outside forces like Jef Whitehead and Scott Conner to expand their sound into dark ambient, harsh noise, and even more traditional black metal rather than just coasting through another hour of high-gain amp drone. I get that their music is about building their specific, deeply meditative and immobilizing atmosphere, but there are times when it just feels like a lazy rehash of the same ridiculously low/no-tempo guitar distortion drone with the band only strumming every dozen seconds or so to prevent the amps from fading out. And that lack of imagination to frustrating degrees indeed manifests in numerous spells on Life Metal as well.

The first piece, the 12-minute “Between Sleipnir’s Breaths”, opens with the same sampling of whineying horses that opens Bathory’s Blood Fire Death and a slightly flanger-esque harmonizer effect on the guitars that gives them a certain organ-like quality as they set the stage for the marathon of drone to come in cinematic fashion, eventually incorporating an eerily softly sung female vocal feature that certainly fits the sprawling dirge of the band’s signature thick, stretched out doom guitar drone. These additions give the song a sense of purpose and direction even though it is still indeed a big long piece of metallic drone and they help elevate the album’s first piece above the three that follow.

The shortest track, “Troubled Air”, (at just under 12 minutes) falls a little more into the typical Sunn O))) rut, but the horn-esque tone the guitars take on over the course of the track does give it some character, and the little light percussive accents like chimes, and I think a triangle, help keep the song interesting before the amplifier feedback breakdown at the song’s climax.

The 19-minute “Aurora” finds the band doing little to break their own mold, stuck in the same slow burn of slightly delayed sustain and amp feedback for even longer than a Spongebob episode. There’s not exactly anything wrong with it, but it’s just not mind-blowing in any way for having already heard the likes of White2 and Monoliths and Dimensions.

The 25-minute closer, “Novæ”, is unfortunately another long-ass slab of reverberated distortion droning that only takes two real directional changes: when the guitars begin to emulate strings and didgeridoos, and when they come back into full metallic distortion again near the end of the track. Again, it’s not a bad piece of heavy ambient drone, but it’s a bit anticlimactic itself as a closer, even as the guitars’ roar returns at the end and even in the gradually conclusive sense, and it’s a bit representative of the general anticlimacticness of this album in the context of its promotion and the Sunn O))) discography.

Life Metal is a bit more of a return to form than Kanon, but still not as momentous as the band’s usual admirers might lead you to believe. It’s by no means a failure by the band to do what they’re expected to do, but it’s hardly as ambitious as Sunn O))) have shown themselves to be at their best. The first two tracks show the band trying to vary their sound a bit, but the bulkier tracks of the album, while not atrociously lazy, are just not doing anything special for the band’s sound. There really should be more to elaborate on, even for a drone album, but Life Metal is just such a meager release from Sunn O))), its demand is minimal for either immersion or discussion.

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMM/10