Sunn O))) @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple

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Friday, 25 September 2009 15:41

With its imposing stone edifice, Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Fort Greene couldn’t have been a more suitable setting for an evening with Southern Lord Records. Run by Greg Anderson— one half of headliners Sunn O))) —Southern Lord is home to some of metal’s more complex and challenging acts.

The show flier dubbed the concert space as “the loudest room in New York.” While that claim may be fodder for debate, it would have been difficult to imagine any venue in the city pushing out more decibels than what was emanating from the high columned building on the corner of Lafayette and Clermont Avenues.

Though each band on the program had a wildly different approach, all were successful in creating a palpable atmosphere. Leading off, Southern Lord newcomers Eagle Twin pulverized the audience with towering riffs. Consisting of avantgarde metal vets—Gentry Densley (Iceburn) on guitar and vocals and Tyler Smith (Form of Rocket) on drums—the duo produced sludge-thick sound. Smith’s ponderous, but explosive drumming was the perfect complement to Densley’s slow and smoldering blues-tinged guitar work that spewed forth from his clear Lucite axe like lava from a volcano.

Conversely, Pelican’s sound soared to stratospheric heights. The Chicago-based four-piece instrumental metal band transported the crowd far above the swamp Eagle Twin had left it in. Using powerful dynamics, Pelican’s quieter passages made their loud crescendos all the more satisfying. Playing a song off their upcoming album, What We All Come to Need, their fourth full-length due out in October—the band announced that they would return to New York City in December.

Earth slammed the audience back down to, well, earth with their brand of bluesy drone. Earth were actually the most affable group to perform. Dylan Carlson played with great soul as notes slowly wept from his white Stratocaster and Steve Moore’s sprinkled in keys and trombone (both wonderfully incorporated in the mix); both of which were exquisite dressing for the real stars of the show, which were the impeccable slowcore drumming of Adrienne Davies and the throbbing low-end of bassist Don McGreevy.

McGreevy was masterful in manipulating tone to create a deep and stirring hum from his bass, while Davies, working symbiotically with her bass player, measured each spare cymbal crash and drum hit with such care that they were swollen with import. After only three songs, Earth called it quits; Davies seemed to have some issues when setting up her drums and gave Carlson a kill sign at the end of the second song. Those in attendance were not too happy with the decision, but even in the short sampling, Earth lived up to their pioneers of doom drone billing.

None of these acts were able to prepare those gathered in the Temple for Sunn O))), who sounded as if they were spawned in a black hole. On Tuesday night, Earth’s Moore and Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar of the infamous black metal group Mayhem joined Sunn O)))’s core duo of Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley.

Set times posted around the venue indicated that headliner would go on at midnight, which wasn’t necessarily the case. In actuality, it was the fog machines that started up at the witching hour, spewing forth thick smoke for a half an hour as the stage remained empty and chanting droned on from the Temple’s PA.

When Sunn O))) finally did arrive, however, there was no denying their presence. Playing before a wall of amplifiers and cabinets, the band’s severely downtuned, droning brand of doom metal carried a sound that wasn’t so much heard as it was absorbed through every pore and orifice.

It’s impossible to exaggerate the power of Sunn O)))’s volume. It filled the Temple with such immense gravity, vibrating up from the ground and collapsing from above, that it was suffocating. This wasn’t music—if you could even call it that—that could be described in terms of rhythm, melody or structure. It was stripped bare of these notions and all that was left was tone and volume. And O’Malley and Anderson were quite deft in manipulating it. However, it wasn’t all abject brutality as Moore’s synths and trombone added an unexpected intricacy to the mix.

Aside from the aural spectacle, Sunn O))) were a hypnotic sight to behold. Though the fog made it sometimes impossible to see the band, let alone the person standing next to you, in between wafts of smoke, a cloaked figure was visible on stage, or a pale hand rising claw-like above the mist. In this regard, it was Csihar who stole the show. His deep voice rumbled so low that it challenged the reverberating thud of Anderson’s bass. When he wasn’t delivering spoken word performances that sounded like the incantations of a wizard or chanting in a demonic throaty timber, he presented himself visually as a sort of black metal performance artist.

At first, Csihar was in a monk’s robe as was the rest of the band, later, however, he emerged on stilts from the side of the stage dressed in a cloak of mirrors, a spiked crown and shot red LED lights from his fingertips—looking much like a wicked perversion of the Statue of Liberty.

The overall affect of Sunn O)))’s performance was an overbearing feeling of dread. It left me wondering why a room full of people would pay $25 to put under such mental and physical duress. Moreover, I wondered what was wrong with me for actually enjoying it.

– James Barone

Pelican photo: Ryan Russell