Band:	Sunn O)))
Album:	Soused [Collaboration]
Style:	Dark Ambient, Drone doom metal
Release date:	October 20, 2014
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. Brando
02. Herod 2014
03. Bull
04. Fetish
05. Lullaby

So Sunn O))) seem to have been taking a liking to collaborations as of late. This in itself is not a bad thing, as Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley have already proven themselves as versatile musicians capable of adapting their sound on multiple occasions. This time around, however, the duo chose to work with Avantgarde musician Scott Walker, the results of which were unfortunately a bit like mixing oil with water.

The sound of Soused is peculiar, to say the least, and it's very difficult to identify exactly who exerted the most influence in the songwriting process here. At times, the music sounds like it could've come straight off of Monoliths & Dimensions, yet with Scott on vocals and some of the horns and percussive effects from his latest Bish Bosch added in. "Bull," perhaps the strongest track of the collab, is the best example of this, with a drony, monotonous core further embellished upon by Scott's wails and some creepy ambient effects. This is where Soused finds its strongest synthesis of the parties involved, and, had it stuck to such a formula throughout, it probably would've been quite a memorable experience.

The key word there, of course, is would've. At other points in the collab (most of them, actually), the music sounds something more along the lines of "Scott Walker ft. Sunn O)))," and this is a far less pleasant listening experience. For anyone familiar with Walker's recent solo work, a similar structure is there: his operatic, somewhat overpowering vocals, generally schizophrenic composing that rapidly shifts from one mood to the next, and the usual surrealist lyrics that suggest that this guy has been down the rabbit hole a bit too many times ("Choo choo mama, how do you lose your luck"? ). The biggest problem is that when this approach comes in, it makes sudden jumps back to the more Sunn O)))-like sound seemingly out of nowhere, and it's a very sloppy transition.

Furthermore, Soused comes across as highly disappointing if nothing else, because there are some moments of excellent songwriting in it, subtle hints at what could've been, but they're few and far between when compared against the music as a whole. At times the union of Sunn O))) and Walker feels a bit forced, and it lacks the sense of natural fusion that made previous collabs like Altar and Terrestrials as good as they were. While the idea of experimenting with other musicians sounds great on paper, sometimes it just doesn't work, and Soused is an example of such a case. If you're a diehard Sunn O))) fan, you should probably give this a peek just for the hell of it, but be warned: you most likely won't find what you were looking for.