Written by Guest on 04.09.2014 at 01:13

Link

Damn, what a voice. Would go great with Sunn O))) indeed, I'm a sucker for deep female vocals.

*Also, as with Terrestrials, we're starting to talk about other bands. Let's keep this trend with the Sunn O))) collabs going

It's leaked

Someone call the plumber

Yeah okay, the only good track is Bull, the one featured in that little teaser. It's the only one with something going on, and benefits from that very dramatic voice of Scott Walker's. It's actually a great song, it gives me goosebumps, and I can see myself listening to it three times in a row from time to time. But the rest of the album is just Scott Walker enunciating words in a dull manner over very light background noise. It doesn't even sound like a collab with Sunn O))). I was expecting heavy drone behind the vocals you can hear in Bull. But nope. Very disappointed.

Written by Ilham on 13.09.2014 at 00:42
But the rest of the album is just Scott Walker enunciating words in a dull manner over very light background noise.

Sounds eerily similar to Lulu...

Written by Troy Killjoy on 13.09.2014 at 00:50

Sounds eerily similar to Lulu...

Revelation of the day: I still haven't listened to that one .

Written by Ilham on 13.09.2014 at 00:52
Revelation of the day: I still haven't listened to that one .

Don't waste your time. I might waste my time with this though, just to see if that comparison holds any merit.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 13.09.2014 at 00:56

Don't waste your time. I might waste my time with this though, just to see if that comparison holds any merit.

If Lulu is like this, then it deserves a 4, not all the hate I have seen. Unfortunately, even in that track I was talking about there are dull moments. I mean dull even for drone. I have no idea if you like drone or not, but I don't think you'll like this either way.

I'm really surprised to see the comparisons to Lulu (which was utter shit), and not only here on MS.
Maybe metalheads are just too skeptical or picky when it comes to listen to other artists outside of metal. Open your minds, this is on another level. It's pretty good, definitely not outstanding nor very creative (it's Sunn O))), not prog-tech-death), but has that creepy vibe that keeps me intrigued throughout the whole album. Scott Walker's voice is always unique, incredibly unnerving and frantic and mesmerizing and ridiculous and what else. Just put on the headphones, listen to Bish Bosch and The Drift, and get fucked up.

One of the most annoying things to come across in a forum has to be the closed-minded metalhead argument. Because if someone doesn't like something that isn't strictly metal, they need to open their mind.

Especially when it's directed at someone who has more non-metal artists in her favourite bands list than anything else. Anyway. This has nothing to do with what style I like or don't like. Even for drone in general and Sunn O))) standards, this is dull.

Written by God Alone on 13.09.2014 at 17:27

Maybe metalheads are just too skeptical or picky when it comes to listen to other artists outside of metal. Open your minds, this is on another level.

I listen to a fair amount of free noise, free jazz, bands and artists that use unconventional vocals and a lot of drone and dark ambient, and even to me this is pretty poor stuff. Aimless sounds with vocals plonked on top. It's really the worst thing I've heard associated with Sunn O)))'s and Stephen O'Malley's name.

I dunno, I wasn't referring to anyone in particular, but I could generalize my thoughts to any other case where an artist decides to do something slightly/entirely different from metal and gets bashed (sometimes reasonably, but often confusingly so). It's a recurrent pattern and I just can't wrap my head around it.
Cheers y'all.

(But we might agree on one thing: this isn't possibly as bad as Lulu. Or should I start worrying about liking it??)

It's not like Sunn O))) is a "typical" metal band that suddenly started releasing avant-garde material. In no way do I find this to be a shift in their sound since they have been doing collaborations and weird shit for years. It's just a dip in quality. And I don't see bashing, I see critiques. The Lulu thing came from someone who hasn't listened to this yet and was trying to be funny. Anyway. Nevermind.

I really don't know how I feel about this. It's got some really nice moments scattered about, but it is almost ruined by the meandering sections which seem really disconnected from the flow of the rest of it. I've only listened to it twice, and it is one of those few albums I need more time to digest, but I am certain that it is a disappointment.

Written by Guest on 13.09.2014 at 18:43

It's really the worst thing I've heard associated with Sunn O)))'s and Stephen O'Malley's name.

I think the problem is that (from what I've read anyway) Walker wrote his music first and then sent it O'Malley and Anderson. So they weren't really working on it in the traditional collaborative sense, the Sunn O))) guys just wrote their shit around what Walker had already done, which is probably why this feels more like "Scott Walker ft. Sunn O)))" than anything else.

Written by Auntie Sahar on 15.09.2014 at 16:19

I think the problem is that (from what I've read anywhere) Walker wrote his music first and then sent it O'Malley and Anderson. So they weren't really working on it in the traditional collaborative sense, the Sunn O))) guys just wrote their shit around what Walker had already done, which is probably why this feels more like "Scott Walker ft. Sunn O)))" than anything else.

Yeah you can really tell there's no rapport going on here. A disappointing way to conduct a collaboration.

Lordy me, am I gonna have a fun time reviewing this one

First of all, it's not entirely a disappointment. The biggest strength of this collab lies in the moments that sound like something off of Monoliths & Dimensions, but with Scott on vocals and some of his horns and shit in the background (most specifically on Bull and about the first half of Brando). But these moments don't seem to build, and it just seems to all fall to shit after a while. The problem is that the music always either feels like "Sunn O))) with Scott on vocals" or "Scott Walker ft. Sunn O)))," rather than an actual collab. It lacks the natural sense of synthesis that made Altar and Terrestrials so good. Scott was a very challenging musician to choose to work with, I understand, but in some ways it just doesn't work. Those soaring, overpowing vocals of his and (quite annoying) spoken word parts go well with his own stuff, but not too much with drone.

Glad to see what I was hearing wasn't just the fruit of my imagination. I really do think this could have been great if the whole album was similar to those dramatic moments on Bull. I don't base my expectations on an album on what I hear in a teaser, but I still find it very misleading to have released only those powerful bits of Bull in the teaser.

By the way, I keep looking for different versions of this album, but they all seem to end abruptly at 6'33''. Does anyone have a complete version of Lullaby or is it meant to be like that?

Written by Ilham on 15.09.2014 at 16:45

By the way, I keep looking for different versions of this album, but they all seem to end abruptly at 6'33''. Does anyone have a complete version of Lullaby or is it meant to be like that?

Mine is 6:33 as well, a very strange ending, that. I don't know if it's meant to be like that, but then if it was I wouldn't be too surprised at the album having so odd an ending. If it's not meant to be like that, chances are good then that something went wrong with OP's uploading process and our downloads are from that original source.

Wow, This is really really bad. I didn't even make it to Lullaby.


Just...

Wow.

Just listened to it and uh... Yeah, it's pretty bad

Now I get the underwhelming comments

Not awful by any stretch, but it reeks of unrealized potential. And, like Ilham said, it's fairly dull. It is perhaps not as bad as Bish Bosch, but it's certainly nowhere close to Scott's good albums. And I've never really liked Sunn O))) so I'm not exactly surprised.

This is Stephen O'Malley's work of the year, I would say. If you're disappointed with Soused, do yourself a solid and get on this shit

Written by Auntie Sahar on 21.10.2014 at 05:59

This is Stephen O'Malley's work of the year, I would say. If you're disappointed with Soused, do yourself a solid and get on this shit

I second this sentiment

Reminds me a lot of Lulu, actually.

Written by Guest on 24.10.2014 at 15:52

Reminds me a lot of Lulu, actually.

Fun fact: a fellow immortal actually sent my review to Stephen O'Malley on Twitter and he didn't entirely take too kindly to it ("I don't see the point in sending this to me if you all neither liked nor understood our work"). I think the Lulu comparisons got him pretty salted

As much as I enjoy the vast majority of his work, O'Malley strikes me, going by interviews and such, as someone who probably thinks his farts don't stink.

Written by Auntie Sahar on 24.10.2014 at 21:34

Fun fact: a fellow immortal actually sent my review to Stephen O'Malley on Twitter and he didn't entirely take too kindly to it ("I don't see the point in sending this to me if you all neither liked nor understood our work"). I think the Lulu comparisons got him pretty salted

I'm sure a lot of people understood it. It wouldn't be getting all the bad reviews it's got if they didn't.

Written by Guest on 24.10.2014 at 21:50

I'm sure a lot of people understood it. It wouldn't be getting all the bad reviews it's got if they didn't.

Surprisingly enough, I haven't really been able to find any more reviews of it even remotely like mine online (if you have, please link up). Most people have been praising it!