Sunn O))) & Ulver - Terrestrials

Sunn O))) & Ulver
Terrestrials
3 February 2014
Southern Lord

3.5 stars out of 5

 

Terrestrials is a collaboration between Seattle’s Sunn O))) and Norway’s Ulver, a pair of nominally “metal” bands with incredibly eclectic and experimental tendencies. If you’re hoping for conventional metal with guitars and drums, you’d best look elsewhere. This album is more Tangerine Dream or Ashra than Opeth or Mayhem; however, it has a very metal mood, despite trumpets playing a greater role than double kick pedals.

The first of the album’s three tracks, “Let There Be Light,” is built upon some deep bass notes which form a subtle yet purposeful progression. Droning violins and trumpets haunt much of the mid range, scraping and whistling along until a drum break propels the song into a more conventional second movement. “Western Horn” is a contradiction, in that it is a drone piece that never really seems to go anywhere, but does so (or fails to do so) in an interesting and arresting manner. The fourteen-and-a-half-minute “Eternal Return” is more properly a song than a drone piece. It has vocals and lyrics and everything! It takes forever to get where it’s going, toiling through a rather conventional keyboard-driven vocal section in the middle before unwinding in arrays and disarrays of violin squiggles and hammered dulcimer doodles.

On the whole this is an album that demands the attention of an LP but provides in return the rewards of only an EP. It’s a bit slight in both running length and general achievement. It has its interesting textures and builds but also its dull moments and predictable paths.

reviewed by Richard Krueger