22:15 Quick Reads 13 comments

If your interest in Sunn O))) stems primarily from the band's patient employment of tone and time as channeled through electric bass, electric guitar, and stacks of amplifiers, you might hate "Alice", the brilliant closing track of its seventh and arguably best album, Monoliths & Dimensions. Sure, these 17 minutes are loud and torpid, easing from one note to another, distortion dripping from each new intonation. But "Alice" finds Sunn O))) exploiting a newfound spaciousness and elegance. As its founders, Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley, crawl across a loose blues progression that mirrors those of slow metal fountainhead Earth, a swell of French and English horns, violin and viola, harp and light percussion rises. Surrounding the guitars, they're like the perfect summer haze, refracting and softening the season's relentless sunlight. "Alice" ends with a fanfare of sorts for this small orchestra. Its long tones are light and lifting, a little like Stars of the Lid commissioning Igor Stravinsky. More Fluorescent One than Black Two, it's completely unexpected, mesmerizing, and beautiful.

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source: pitchfork.com (i know i know)