Sunn O))) & Ulver: Terrestrials
Author: Spencer Grady
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Ole-Henrik Moe (vla) |
Label: |
Southern Lord SUNN |
Magazine Review Date: |
May/2014 |
Catalogue Number: |
200 |
RecordDate: |
2008-2012 |
It would seem Cthulhu now dreams in fusion. Evolved from grim origins, recent albums by these ghoulish envoys have channelled more rarefied tropes, from Glassian symphony to a pronounced infatuation with late-1960s/70s jazz. Indeed, Sunn O)))'s colossal Monoliths And Dimensions, from 2009, referenced both Miles Davis and Alice Coltrane, in sound, spirit and track-title selection, while featuring a keen contribution from legendary trombonist Julian Priester. Though Terrestrials doesn't quite match that former effort's all-conquering majesty (partially owing to Kristoffer Rygg's off-putting gothic vocal melodrama), it still has plenty to recommend it. Tellingly, it's when these collaborators mine jazz as a means of elevation, soaring beyond the churning malevolence of so much of their music, that they strike the richest seams. The genre's redemptive light reverberates throughout the escalating horn embrace of opening track ‘Let There Be Light’, and in Daniel O'sullivan's subtle Rhodes padding – with its nods to Chick Corea, Jan Hammer and Bora Rokovic's Ultra Native – lurking beneath the squall of ‘Eternal Return’. Such moments are akin to a billowing marshland birthing a goblet of gold, a gleaming beacon guiding home souls of the lost.

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