Monoliths & Dimensions

Released

Monoliths & Dimensions is Sunn O)))’s most audacious album. Each track is different, adding new elements to their core sound (a vast cloud of ultra-heavy, ultra-distorted, room-filling guitar and bass chords that are allowed to rumble out until it seems like the foundations of your house are going to give way). Vocalist Attila Csihar, who intones poetry in a sepulchral baritone and an impossibly thick Dracula accent, is a constant presence, but one track features a female vocal ensemble, another features an all-male chorus, while a third — a salute to Alice Coltrane — features orchestral horns, flute, multiple double basses, and harp. It’s still some of the heaviest music around, but there’s an airiness to it, like someone cracked a skylight in the vast ziggurat in which they dwell, letting a ray of sunshine strike the altar.

Phil Freeman

Suggestions
Picture Music cover

Picture Music

Klaus Schulze
Hyperion cover

Hyperion

Krallice
Excavation cover

Excavation

The Haxan Cloak
You Like Music cover

You Like Music

Galen Tipton, death's dynamic shroud
Window In cover

Window In

Michael Vallera
Without a Net cover

Without a Net

Wayne Shorter Quartet
Ubique cover

Ubique

Claire Chase, Cory Smythe, Katinka Kleijn, Seth Parker Woods
Way of the Cairns cover

Way of the Cairns

Patrick Cornelius