Throughout their career, these two musicians have interpreted black, dark, and drone metal with their signature cacophony. Healthy O))) finds them throwing another ingredient into the mix: field records. Made at Bear Creek Studio in the aptly named Woodinville, a cool neighborhood about 20 miles northeast of Seattle, the album feels like a collaborative project led by the band themselves and the environment in which they created it. O’Malley and Anderson followed these pieces as they looked out the large windows overlooking the thick forest. While those field recordings aren’t readily apparent with all the distortion and volume, the outdoor, lush green environment sounds like it’s there on a subconscious level, encouraging Sunn O))) to take the path they do. It is the guiding hand of nature rather than a strong, evil force.
“Mindrolling” begins with flowing water, a quiet reminder of the situation surrounding the duo as they ride wave after wave of punishment. It is this difference between the peaceful nature of the idyll and the danger of the musicians Healthy O))) such a horrible experience. Those short creatures, tiny cracks in the frontal shore of the guitar-worn ice, want you to come closer. As a group infamous for showing that shake the very buildings in which they worktheir strong feelings are often underplayed. But Healthy O))) corrects any misconceptions; each piece ebbs and flows with the ocean’s gravity.
Those haunting guitars of “Mindrolling” hold steady for nearly 18 minutes, but it’s only in the last minute that the beautiful sound of water that introduced the song hits. It is a subtle testament to the resilience of nature, how it can regenerate and endure. even the most brutal destruction. “Does Anyone Feel Like Poison?” it’s a nod to the Newcastle-bred black metal that sits within Sunn O)))’s oeuvre. Its viscous guitars wail with the patience of magma, lingering and shining in piles of volcanic ash. “Glory Black” soon finds a different groove to complement the band’s records: The synthesizer rises like a cream, its clever strings float slightly in the background, and it ends in a piano that hits its notes in a strange way.
Healthy O))) is the distillation of the tactile drone metal they see as a tribute to the beauty of nature. As bleak and bleak as it sounds at times, and as long as this stormy confusion passes, there is a calm that begs you to listen closely. Is that the sound of the river? Are those birds singing happily in the distance? The noise subsides, and we are left with remnants of life beyond us, ecosystems and habitats that resist man-made destruction. Like any smart environmentalist, O’Malley and Anderson are there to document that power. Just listen to what can survive. [Sub Pop]
Grant Sharples is an author, journalist and critic. His work has also appeared in Talk, Uproxx, Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Ringer, NME, and other articles. He lives in Kansas City.
