Sunn O))), Ulver

Doom behemoths Sunn O))) and Ulver meet for a deeply spiritual blood-letting on the eagerly anticipated 'Terrestrials'. What started out as an improvised all-night session between the bands following Sunn O)))'s 200th gig - playing to 2000 people at the Øya festival in Oslo, Norway, August 10th, 2008 - has grown into a tantric, cinematic dedication to the night some half decade in the making. The original tracks they created that night have been over-dubbed in the interim resulting in three extended pieces that have a widescreen, dare we say cinematic quality. "Let There Be Light" builds from a barely-there drone to a smokey arrangement that sounds something like Bohren and Der Club of Gore via Hex-era Bark Psychosis, all evocative space and shimmering lights, while "Western horn" accelerates on a single and austere note of sustained bass and low end, evolving gradually into a haunted soundscape featuring violins, clusters of Fender Rhodes and guitar pickups gradually layered beneath Anderson's augmented feedback. The 14-minute 'Eternal Return' is the most striking of the three tracks, closing the album with an epic Bohren/Badalementi-esque construct that takes 7+ minutes to reach a denouement involving Kristoffer Rygg singing about 'Pythagorean Egypt' with a wholly unexpected synthline for accompaniment. Try and imagine Mike Patton and Ennio Morricone battling it out for a vague idea of how it sounds; it really shouldn't work, and it'll no doubt prove divisive - but we just keep on returning to it, enjoying it more with every listen.