Life Metal

Life Metal is the dawning of a new phase for Sunn 0))), one that resonates with more power and complexity than anything in their catalog.

Life Metal resonates in the surrounding air particles long after the last track concludes, and will reverberate in the minds of listeners longer still. A truly magnificent, very real, and ultimately restorative record.

Life Metal retains all the traits that make Sunn O))) who they are, yet intertwined with a spark of unmistakable vibrance that lifts the spirit, even in the midst of such abyssal depths.

More mellifluous than menacing despite its formidable display of power, Life Metal may be the richest work in the band's 21-year-mission to reconfigure Tony Iommi-worthy riffage into a soundtrack for mindful meditation. [May 2019, p.34]

At its best, Life Metal taps into our psyches and rearranges the elements. Sunn O))) have become experts in their harsh and unmerciful take on expanding sound, slowing it to a glacial pace, and finally rearranging it again until it’s unrecognizable.

With Life Metal ... they have minimized those aspects of their sound which were perhaps becoming too comfortable for them, and too familiar for the audience. The result is a work rich in texture, depth and tenderness.

Life Metal underlines the point of it all: These four pieces are best suited to take over a room, to fill a venue as massive as the sound itself and, in turn, to be felt. They vibrate, pulse, and quiver. In a time where we experience so much media on a seemingly microscopic scale, from earbuds to smartphone screens, Life Metal takes up a large space, where devastating waves of sound that make actual ceilings crumble somehow become a restorative listening experience.

It does thrillingly refine the group's electric explorations of numinous spaces both minuscule and gigantic. [Jul 2019, p.114]

Pateras is much less dominant in the mix, mostly smouldering beneath the scintillating haze of distortion but occasionally slicing through like white light. Sitting on top of the mix are an assortment of glowing meditation bells played at unexpected intervals, which have the effect of plucking awareness from the dark recesses of sound one could otherwise be pulled all the way into. [May 2019, p.63]

Life Metal is music as event. It’s a terrific record.

Overflowing with cultural, mythological and artistic allusions and a prepossessing unrest, Life Metal is an album that insists upon provoking imaginative thought, and is sure to do more for your gut motility than any prune.

Gloriously triumphant, weirdly exhilarating and entirely engrossing, Sunn O))) have created something genuinely brilliant here.

Even at moderate volume, parts of Life Metal may loosen your neighbours' guttering. [May 2019, p.95]