In keeping with the occultish look of Sunn O))) there are plenty of legends surrounding the band, one punter cheerfully telling a friend they've been known to make audience members collapse and be physically sick. This sounds suspiciously apocryphal, until they begin to churn up a mire of low-end turmoil, when it becomes increasingly plausible.
From Seattle and with a cultish fan base, their hooded gowns make them reminiscent of a monastic order like Game of Thrones’ Faith Militant. That particular brotherhood of zealots were annihilated, and Sunn O))) are very much tapping this end of days dystopia, a serene intro of Gregorian-style chanting a momentary calm before dissolving into insidious waves of slow burning fury.
It's hard to overemphasise the physicality of the show, the awesome display of might vibrating everything from shin bones to lymph nodes, even interfering with the body’s sense of gravity. The free earphones handed out behind the bar were like an umbrella in a hurricane.
An ambient thrash, totally beatless and funeral march slow, is punctuated by monstrous chanting and guttural noises in an apparent debt to Mongolian throat singing. There were plenty of metallers in the room, raised fists periodically appearing through the thick fog of dry ice, and it was one of the more busiest shows this reviewer has ever seen at Concorde 2, the faithful horde standing statuesque and absorbing wave after wave of drone.
There were moments of snarling tension in the densely filled venue as late comers elbowed through and the disoriented staggered out, Sunn O)))’s rumbling heaviness exacerbating the discomfort, though eventually acting like a pacifier. Meditative and hypnotic have become clichéd adjectives in music writing, though for once these descriptions feels apt.
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