I arrived at Sunn O))) fully prepared for some loud drone metal. What eventuated was the loudest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced. With smoke billowing onto Swanston St from deep within Max Watt’s, the scene was set before I even walked down the stairs and into the venue’s guts.
Why are there so many signs telling me to wear earplugs? I asked myself. Surely, it’s just to reduce any potential complaints or something? I self-answered. Nope – it was because if you chose not to wear earplugs, you’d never hear anything again. Your cochlea would commence a sacrificial ceremony whereby every hair cell and sensory receptor would be burnt to death. So I decided to wear ear earplugs.
Since it dropped, I’ve given Sunn O)))’s Kannon so much of a workout that I discovered how to scratch an mp3. Kannon’s almost spiritual, ritualistic three movements make for a droning ripper of an album that gives new meaning to the term ‘slow grind’. I couldn’t wait to hear the nuances of their wall-of-drone live for the first time. I managed to get a peek at the band’s set up as I carefully navigated my way through the sold out house. The stage was stocked with about seven Ampeg 8×10 speaker cabinets. But I’m pretty sure that the guitars were pre-amped with some kind of bring-the-dead-back-to-life head unit. I’m also pretty sure that the venue owners must have consulted engineers to ensure that the building’s foundations would hold up during a Sunn O))) gig.
There are no songs at a Sunn O))) show, only movements. After plenty of heavier than hell riffs played slower than a geriatric slug wading through honey, singer Attila Csihar (of Mayhem fame) joined his black-cloaked bandmates onstage. His famous Black Metal growl filled the room and things got even louder. But I think something was slightly lost on me. The very subtle changes throughout their epic riffs were missing – they were substituted with sound waves that felt more like tidal waves. Perhaps I wasn’t particularly disciplined during the performance but I started to focus on the fact that any object not nailed to the floor was moving and vibrating. My drink literally slid across the bar when I wasn’t holding it.
As impressive as their recorded works are – and as much as I enjoy these records – I was left wanting during their set. Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson have received critical acclaim for blending diverse genres of heavy music – drone, ambient, noise and extreme metal. And they manage to do it all without a drummer.
Their musicianship is infallible and their nuanced compositions are genre defining, however this performance by Sunn O))) had me feeling like I just needed more.
LOVED: Successfully preventing deafness.
HATED: Missing the subtleties of their studio albums.
DRANK: Anything that didn’t slide off the bar.
BY NAJ
