Notes on Music brings reviews on the latest and upcoming album releases across all genres. 

It is artistic analogy time. Musicians are like the traveling heroes in fantasy novels, constantly wandering from town to town, searching for glorious quests and items of power, maidens in difficulties and short hairy dwarves/roadies to drink under the table (not necessarily in that order). But there are also dark lands in the world of music, places where the staunchest feet fear to tread.

These lands play host to frostbitten and Satanic textures, rumbling, cavernous bass noises and the mysterious men in black robes who play them, including the American drone kings Sunn O))) and ex-metalhead Norwegian avant-garde Ulver. Tremble in fear mortals, for those two have teamed up (again) to unleash the darkness in what might seem to be the underground metal scene’s answer to “Watch the Throne”: “Terrestrials.”

Recorded as a jam session in the depths of the night to celebrate Sunn O)))’s 200th show, “Terrestrials” is a sparse three tracks that sees both groups fully merging to leave their signature sounds almost completely behind. The crushing distorted bass walls that mark a Sunn O))) record are replaced by a slow hum at the foundation, and the sorrowful electronic dirges of Ulver are the counterpoint rather than the focus.

The opener “Let There Be Light” starts its eleven minutes off lightly with an air of calm and tasteful ambience. The distant horns and strings in the background mix with flourishes of bass rumbling and humming suggest a darker, dramatic turn. It is almost like a movie where the character is watching the sunrise while waiting on a suspicious contact from a foreign spy agency, who might decide to stab you instead of giving up the double agent like he freaking promised. (Dip your croissant in that, Jean-Francois!) Then the drums come in, and it all blows up. Then “Western Horn” takes a darker swing toward Sunn O)))’s M.O, with the bass howls and growls like a wounded beast and mosquitoes scream in your ears over a crypt-like mood.     

I was almost seriously disappointed in the record towards the end because it seemed entirely instrumental, but I was saved at the eleventh hour of “Eternal Return” by Ulver’s Garm, who finally put a period on the album with his spooky and melodic Nick Cave like intoning. It was a genius stroke to dangle his great voice right at the end, then crush it in horrific ambience. Plus, Sunn O))) didn’t have to seal him in a coffin to get that performance. Everybody wins!

If you have time to kill or a need for a really creepy study buddy, give “Terrestrials” a spin. Go to that dark place. Maybe you will come back. At the least you will have interesting stories to tell.