Sunn has incorporated melodic textures, stringlike synths, voices etc into their trademark doomy drone. Tracks are still trance-inducing mantras that last a minimum of ~10 minutes. But it feels like they have completed a quantum leap from their original drone fests and entered a realm of melody and ethereal beauty inhabited by the likes of Eno and Harold Budd and their mentors, Earth. Note: After I wrote this review I checked their website and got an eyeful as follows (see back [below], collaborators include Oren Ambarchi and an all star cast including people from Sun Ra, Herbie Hancock’s, Zorn, Coltrane’s bands, etc etc et al).

1) what you’d expect, low end power chords sustained forever inducing a trance immediately, midway some creepy indecipherable vocals appear, weird, and continue front and center from about ~ 15 min til end
2) quieter drone, more recent Earth feel, almost a twang, glacial to evolve with dominating long sustained trademark chords with synth chords, exits with synths and pleasing horns even
3) “Choral noise”: choral voices in front, then heavy chords/drone followed by sparse instrumentation then the choral element takes center, heavy chords but then it leads to choral drones, incredible use of vocal to their own end!
4) quieter noise til ~2min and heavy guitar chords with demonic vocs, choral arrangements join in slowly, builds in intensity but in a very tasteful hypnotic form , then falls into a lovely hypnotic drone, just plain beautiful sound
textures that make you think/feel.

SUNN O))) is proud to present their 7th studio album, after 10 years of existence, entitled Monoliths & Dimensions. 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 also collaborated with composer Eyvind Kang (notable for his work with John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, etc.) 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 (Mayhem, Tormentor, etc.) and slow music godfather Dylan Carlson (Earth), as well as a brass section: Steve Moore (of Earth), Julian Priester (worked with Sun Ra in the 50s, John Coltrane’s African Brass band, and Herbie Hancock’s Sextant band) and new-music horn player Stuart Dempster. There’s also an upright bass trio, French & English horns, harp & flute duo, piano, reed & strings ensembles, and a Viennese woman’s choir led by Persian vocal savant Jessika Kenney.

The album is not “SUNN O))) with strings” or “metal meets orchestra” material. The band took an approach concentrating on more of allusion toward the timbre of feedback and the instruments involved, so the piece is really illusory, beautiful and not entirely linear, stating that the end product is “the most musical piece we’ve done, and also the heaviest, powerful and most abstract set of chords we’ve laid to tape” The album was recorded and mixed by Randall Dunn & Mell Dettmer…