Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, the Sunn O))) duo, are not traditional musicians. Dressed in threatening-looking cowls and treating their guitars as if they were sacred objects, these creators of “drone metal” music defy conventional norms. Their choice of style involves stunningly loud and monumental sounds, setting them apart in the sphere of musicians known for their cult-like attire.
At the start of their extraordinary concert at Dublin’s National Concert Hall, a collection of retro amplifiers were set hazardously amidst rolling dry ice on stage. The equipment was positioned to create an eerie resemblance to a smaller scale Stonehenge or the chilling monoliths from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Words like “chilling” and “huge” are also fitting descriptions for O’Malley and Anderson and their uniquely raw, twilight-like sound. Their drone metal music builds on the trend initiated by distortion innovators Earth in the 90s. The duo, named after the popular Sunn amplifier brand and simply referred to as “Sun”, hail from Seattle and are part of the broader heavy metal genre. But it’s quite an underestimation to label them just as another metal band, similar to calling Jaws an intermittent fish feeder. While there is truth in the statement, it does fail to capture the entire essence. Their true language is decibel, with the overarching philosophy that high-intensity music is not just an auditory but a visceral experience.
The compositions of Sunn O))) are delivered with the relentless morosity of quick-moving glaciers, their overpowering nature enhanced by foreboding titles like CandleGoat and Rxanlord. Massive sound waves churn and eddy, intensifying the sensation of being pulled into a supernova made further spectral by the eerie still lighting throughout.
The atmospheric overtones sustained during the entire evening resemble that of a gathering with two overly-committed Dungeons and Dragons fans taking their predilection for total immersion just a tad too seriously.
The reference to the hooded attire is a throwback to the Monty Python and the Holy Grail friars, widely remembered for their self-flagellation with wooden boards. Anderson solidified his geek status by working with Mörk Borg’s creators, a role-playing game somewhat like a death metal D&D, on a musical project, ‘Putrescence Regnant’, which also served as a fantastical board game adventure in 2020.
An all-pervading sensation akin to standing face to face with Sauron in Mordor dominates their fully-booked performance. In the persona of the bringers of doom, O’Malley and Anderson craft unruly tides of chaos, never abandoning their roles. The noise commences at high volume, concludes likewise, and the intermediate portion is even more thunderous.
As the reverberations eventually decrease and the smoke from the special effects thins, the pair steps ahead, recognising their audience. Clapping resounds throughout the venue. Nonetheless, the predominant reactions among the spectators are not so much appreciative but rather astonished awe at the spectacle they’ve witnessed, and disbelief that they survived a performance that’s both a throttling journey to the outermost fringes of acoustics and a revelation of a divine nature.