Track Listing

1. Aghartha
2. Big Church (Megszents�gtelen�thetetlens�gesked�seitek�rt)
3. Hunting & Gathering (Cydonia)
4. Alice

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11764 in Music
• Released on: 2009-05-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Album Description
2009 release, the seventh studio album in their 10 year career. The album showcases the core guitar duo - Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson - incorporating influences from a plethora of guest musicians, bringing the SUNN O))) sound to epic new levels. The band collaborated with composer Eyvind Kang on various acoustic ensembles, in addition to the Helios fueled electric guitars and basses. Key players on the album include Australian guitar genius Oren Ambarchi, enigmatic Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar and slow music godfather Dylan Carlson (Earth), as well as Julian Priester and new-music horn player Stuart Dempster. There's also an upright bass trio, French & English horns, harp & flute duo, piano, brass, reed & strings ensembles, and a Viennese woman's choir led by Persian vocal savant Jessika Kenney.

Customer Reviews

Touchstone of the Genre
If you already know what this band is about, here's the short version of the review: You will be surprised, you will be transported, you will be lifted and you will not be disappointed. For those of you still uninitiated (or those of the initiated who still aren't sure what to expect), read on.

First off, this album still has the churning, heavy, droning, all-encompassing bass violence we've come to expect from Sunn O))). The downtuned chords still drone ad infinitum. Maximum volume still yields maximum results. But what we get here is an even greater expanded sense of dynamic contrast that was alluded to on their most recent live effort, Dømkirke. Guest vocalist (and frequent Sunn O))) collaborator) Attila Csihar's monologues come off like a Hungarian Vincent Price at his most dark and unsettling.

Some of the most remarkable moments on this album though come not from O'Malley and Anderson or their core collaborators, but from the arrangements by composer Eyvind Kang. The band expressed early on prior to the release that the goal was to allude to "the timbre of feedback," and Kang's arrangements capture this perfectly. The line is often blurred between real feedback coming from the Guitars and Basses and the illusory feedback provided by the strings, horns and women's chamber choir. Of course, this expanded instrumentation does more than just that. The orchestral arrangements can be breathtaking, particularly in the album's closing piece, "Alice," where the chamber group and legendary trombonist Julian Priester swirl around one another to dazzling effect. It brings to mind what might happen if Aaron Copland's "prairie nationalism" were slowed down to a crawl and successfully combined with American Free Jazz.

This album is a masterpiece of experimental composition and a testament to the beauty that is possible in the "drone metal" genre. Get this, crank it up and lose yourself.

EPIC DOOO))))MMM
This CD blew me away. I have yet to listen to it outside of headphones; I can only imagine how immersive an experience it is on big speakers at high volumes. 'Agharta' is a brilliantly evocative piece with Atila stealing the show with incredibly creepy intonations (he sings on 3 of the 4 tracks and is brilliant throughout). The final track, 'Alice' is a thing of pure beauty. Kudos to the all the fine musicians who have created one of the best Cds of the year!

(((((((------->0<-------)))))))
Whereas Black One was an exercise in frighteningly evil blackness, this album is truly monolithic. I couldn't help but think of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Also conjured up in my mind were images of what I picture ancient Egypt being overall, with lots of gargantuan statues and obelisks. The horns, the choir, Attila's vocals and, of course, Lord's and Soma's underlying dro)))ne mastery. The highlights for me were "Hunting & Gathering (Cydonia)", and "Alice", though all were excellent. An excellent follow-up to their last Studio LP, Black One.