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
End to Slavery cover

End to Slavery

Eugene Chadbourne
The Unnatural World cover

The Unnatural World

Have a Nice Life
Greif cover

Greif

Zeal & Ardor
In E cover

In E

Water Damage
Black Axis cover

Black Axis

Caspar Brötzmann Massaker
+/- cover

+/-

Ryoji Ikeda
Elastic Wave cover

Elastic Wave

Gard Nilssen’s Acoustic Unity
Ascension cover

Ascension

John Coltrane