Cold metal for the long winter, by Kurt Gottschalk

Sunn O))) – Pyroclasts (Southern Lord)

LIke Drone Razors Through Flesh Sphere – Sacred Quietus (Zazen Sounds)

Every so often, a band comes along the greatness of which is beyond its own measure, a band that stands as a gateway to discovery. Miles Davis’s groups, the Yardbirds, the various incarnations of Acid Mothers Temple, all lead to multiple – and sometimes greater – rewards through their various side projects and membership changes.

The mighty Sunn O))) is another such iceberg. Not only one of the best downtempo doom bands around, they serve as a guide through the darkness by way of their collaborations and, notably, the roster found on Southern Lord, the label founded by Sunn O))) guitarist Greg Anderson. He and Sunn O))) co-conspirator Stephen O’Malley are responsible for untold gallons of worthy audio sludge. 

At their best, Sunn O))) music is like an orchestration of feedback, waves arranged into something somewhat like structure. This year’s Life Metal (their eighth release) showed them at their stripped-down best. After four years without a studio album, they’ve issued a second missive from the void this year with Pyroclasts. And where Life Metal was sort of slow variations on a grind, the new album is almost meditative, if still highly charged. 

Pyroclasts was born of ritual during the recording of Metal Life. The band began and ended their sessions recording the new tracks with improvised drones to facilitate the immersion. Those improvisations became a framework for the album and, in fact, a playlist with alternating tracks from each of the records might be the best way to listen to them. Both were recorded by producer Steve Albini and sound beautiful, if you’re not scared of the dark. 

If Sunn O))) is the tip of the iceberg, the Spanish project Like Drone Razors Through Flesh Sphere existed somewhere deep below the frozen surface of the water. CG Santos, the band’s sole member, has been focusing on other projects in recent years, but through the Greek label Zazen Sounds has released an unearthed 2010 session of gorgeously atmospheric stillness. Santos manages to take all the rock out of his music while retaining the metal. The music has more in common with a Morton Feldman composition, or a John Carpenter score, or a record by the longstanding British free improv group AMM, than it does anything in the wake of the mighty Black Sabbath, but it retains the electricity and the fatalism of the best heavy metal. It was a remarkable project and, although seemingly over, is fortunately easily heard. All two dozen of Santos’ LDRTFS records, as well as more than three dozen Sunn O))) albums, are streaming in full on Bandcamp, which should be enough for the long winter ahead.