Ducks Battle Satan

We’ve all had those embarrassing moments. You have guests. Everyone is naked except for their black robes. The goat is locked up in the bathroom. The pentagram has been drawn and everyone is looking forward to a night of chanting and fingerpainting rude words in blood. You like to think of yourself as a good host. And a good host always has the perfect record to get eveyone in the mood for fun. Madonna? Too upbeat. Timberlake? Too annoying. Snoop Dogg? Not really appropriate for the goat. My friends I give you Black One. You never need be embarrassed again.

I discovered Sunn O))) after taking the plunge and buying White One.  If you’ve read my previous post you now know I am an impulsive little fucker and the fact that I didn’t have any “bowel churning, low frequency, dark ambient, drone” had to be rectified straight away.  I’ll post on Sunn O)))’s previous output at some later stage but I will say that their previous records gave a bit of a sense of evil and forboding but what affected me the most was the frequencies, the very low frequencies. Sure the previous records had their sinister moments but at times they were fucking funny. Get a copy of White One and try not to snigger at the drug fucked ramblings of Julian Cope (yes that Julian Cope!) on My Wall.

Black One is a bleak, humourless, evil powerhouse of immense depth. This record is relentless. Dark ambient drones mix with death metal screams for a thoroughly unsettling experience. Take Cursed Realms (of the Winterdemons) for instance.  The track opens with what sounds like arctic winds racing over tundra. It’s almost beautiful. Then Mr deathmetal starts screaming but he’s not front and centre in the mix. Somewehere he stands in the distance or maybe the force of his screams have been blown away by those icy arctic winds. Just when I begin to feel unsettled enough the guitars begin. Big droning power chords. Speakers crackle and bowels are upset. It continues for another ten minutes of layer upon layer of darkness. Light is crushed and in the last ten seconds the world ends.

The next track is Orthodox Caveman. I’m not sure what that is but it is the most orthodox Sunn O)))) track here. Nothing exists for ten minutes except for the guitar churning out sickening power chord after sickening power chord.

Black One is not exactly where I would choose to start if I was new to dark ambient and Sunn O))). Try White 1 and particularly White 2 if you want to dabble. Black One is a triumph of evil intent. Every home should have one.

This entry was posted on July 7, 2007 at 6:57 am and is filed under Music, Sunn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.