0))) Presents...

Most people who already have the live Pentemple album are likely to have the single CD version but if you were prepared to wait and spend a bit extra, a Japanese double CD version came out in August 2008 and it's this version that's being reviewed. The novelty value of Sunn0))) men Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley plus Attila Csihar and Oren Ambarchi playing a live gig with reclusive BM musician Sin Nanna of Striborg would have attracted a fair few curious fans of Sunn0))) and Striborg. Fortunately the music is not bad though I confess I do wish it had been better: Sin Nanna confines himself to playing drums and singing in that crabby reverb-drenched spaced-out voice and the Striborg presence tends to be secondary to the Sunn0))) presence (not surprising I guess), and that in a way is disappointing as Sin Nanna and Oren Ambarchi probably could have traded guitaring and drumming duties throughout the gig. Also on the first CD at least, the Sunn0))) men are much less intrusive with their droning guitars and the focus tends to be on the inter-play between Attila Csihar and Sin Nanna with respect to their vocals; the second CD though tends to be more dominated by the guitars and Csihar and Sin Nanna end up being sidelined.

On the first CD, "Pazuzu 1" starts with droning but your attention soon turns to Csihar's vocal gymnastics and Sin Nanna's horrified shrieks duelling with each other. Sin Nanna soon starts bashing away at the skins and it's his frenzied improvised drumming (I knew he was pretty good with the sticks, having heard several Striborg albums, but I didn't realise he was that good!) that drives the guitars, which are now as much BM-styled tremolo playing as droning) onward and which gives the track energy and structure. The music segues into "Pazuzu 2" with vocals from Csihar and Sin Nanna coming more to the fore and the pace set by the drums slowing down and becoming regular though still fast. The guitar drones also assert themselves but strangely in a warmer and non-threatening way. Everything becomes constant until the end where the drumming stops and the drones start to repeat themselves while Sin Nanna's voice echoes and vibrates in the background.

On CD 2, "Pazuzu 3" has a ghostly intro thanks to quiet echo effects and gentle bell-like percussion tones (Oren Ambarchi at work here) with a murky ambience floating above the sound landscape. Csihar and Sin Nanna call out like deserted mad men stumbling about in a dark and vast wasteland. Tremolo guitar and a hornet drone come to dominate the black space, blocking out everything else. At some point Sin Nanna's heavily treated screams become shimmering effects with only a very slight human presence and start to push the drones along. Later in the track the guitars start to get tedious and distract from the more interesting background activity where Csihar seems to be still active. Another guitar line, chainsaw-whiny, starts to develop along side the drones. The music continues developing in this way while effects based on Csihar and Sin Nanna's voices swoop and fly around.

The whole thing probably could have been improved or changed with the droning guitars pushed back more into the mix to allow Csihar and Sin Nanna's vocal work together to dominate as it's not likely we'll hear of these two guys performing together again for a while at least. In parts of "Pazuzu 3" there are lots of things happening in the background but they are ridden over by the juggernaut droning guitars to the extent that if you try to turn the sound up on your CD player, you hear even more of the drones instead. This album is strictly for fans of Sunn0))) and Striborg - the drumming and the ambient percussion tones are a good addition to the droning guitars which I think now need a rethink on the Sunn0))) men's part as to how the Sunn0)) concept can be refreshed and made original, apart from simply adding a changing line-up of musicians to augment the core drone sound. The atmosphere of the album is deeply unsettling with those feedback vocals and this is perhaps the best part of the whole set.