#sunn amplifiers

Sunn O))): Black One (2005)

Given Sunn O)))’s considerable contemporary trendiness and all-around cult status, I think it’s curious that I was pretty much the only lunatic willing to review their ‘00 albums for the All-Music Guide.

Among which, the Black One remains a personal favorite, thanks to some mercifully shorter songs and evident attempt to meld Sunn’s patented drone escapades with black metal, with an assist from some of the coolest names in what was then a fast-rising American B.M. scene.

After deconstructing Immortal’s “Cursed Realms (Of the Winterdemons)” into a barely recognizable primordial soup of tonal thrumming, Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley borrow lyrics from Mayhem’s Dead for the splendidly named “Candlegoat,” then lock an allegedly claustrophobic Malefic (of Xasthur) in a casket to record his screams for the megalithic “Báthory Erzsébet.” 

Both “Orthodox Caveman” and “Cry for the Weeper” inhabit more traditional Sunn O))) caverns, or, as I put it in my AMG review, the drink “from the same old, Earth-derived dead-water pool.”

Okey-dokey.

However, if you ask me, nothing here beats the evil-as-fuck “It Took the Night to Believe,” featuring bowel-loosening growls and blood-curdling shrieks by Wrest (of Leviathan and Lurker of Chalice) over an improbably brief six minutes. 

As you can probably tell, I’m a bigger fan of these departures than the standard Sunn O))) formula, but that’s because I’ve got neither the time nor disposition to while away the day absorbing droning epics … fascinating as they can be.

Ampeg V4 cab with Sunn Concert Bass.