I generally dislike drone, although I thought Sunn O)))’s latest, Monoliths and Dimensions, was at least listenable.  Thus, when this, their so-called “classic album” was reissued, I figured I’d give it a listen.  Did I mention I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately?

øø Void contains but four tracks, each over 14 minutes long, but were it not for the couple seconds of silence in between them, this could really just be one long, slow song.  “Richard” opens with a single, slowly played bassline before some distorted guitar noise comes in.  I’d hardly call it a riff, it’s really just a couple notes ringing out ad infinitum.  Well, there are a couple different noises going on here, one that’s just distortion and one that has a bit of a ringing, police-siren cadence.  Somebody call the fuzz police!

“NN O)))” starts off much like its predecessor; low, droning bass with some distortion overtop.  Lather, rinse and repeat for 15+ minutes.  It almost sounds like there’s some chanting or something in the background, but that might just be my ears playing tricks on me in an attempt to make this song more interesting.

Can you imagine a warped Black Sabbath record that got stuck on that eerie opening riff, and listening to it on repeat for an hour?  That’s basically what you get with this album, though it doesn’t even have church bells.

“Rabbits’ Revenge” actually starts off with guitar feedback before the bass comes in, which is a dramatic shift as far as Sunn O))) is concerned.  In fact, the bass seems to take a bit of a back seat on this one, as it’s not nearly as loud as on previous efforts, a derivative Sleep-style pentatonic bassline barely audible underneath this wall of fuzz.  As you might expect, this rabbit’s going nowhere fast, another 14-minute snoozer.  It sounds like somebody turned on the radio to some Smashing Pumpkins song for a minute or two almost halfway through this number, or maybe one of the amps accidentally picked up the radio frequency.  I actually had that happen at this jam space once.  Funny thing, the station only seemed to be playing “Alone” by Heart…

“Ra at Dusk” brings this one to an end, more distorted guitar feedback, although there is actually a distinguishable riff for a couple minutes coming out of one speaker channel, while the other is just an overdrive pedal on, well, overdrive.  Kudos for actually playing an instrument on this one.  Now, about those song lengths…

CHOICE CUTS: You mean, there are songs on here?  I thought it was just a yoga relaxation tape…

THE VERDICT: O(((