Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions

2009, Southern Lord Records

1. Aghartha (17:34)
2. Big Church (megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért) (9:43)
3. Hunting & Gathering (Cydonia) (10:02)
4. Alice (16:21)

Monoliths & Dimensions is the seventh studio album by drone doom band Sunn O))). The album was created and recorded over a period of 2 years and features the collaborations of composer Eyvind Kang, Australian guitar player Oren Ambarchi, Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar, Dylan Carlson from the drone band Earth, and trombonists Julian Priester and Stuart Dempster. There's also an upright bass trio, French and English horns, harp and flute duo, piano, brass, reed and strings ensembles, and a Viennese woman's choir led by Persian vocal savant Jessika Kenney.

However, the band has expressed that:
“The album is not "SUNN O))) with strings" or "metal meets orchestra" material. The band took an approach concentrating on more of allusion toward the timbre of feedback and the instruments involved, so the piece is really illusory, beautiful and not entirely linear, stating that the end product is "the most musical piece we’ve done, and also the heaviest, powerful and most abstract set of chords we’ve laid to tape".

The cover art is "out-of-round X" done by Richard Serra in 1999.
-Wikipedia

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Khanate - Clean Hands Go Foul

2009, Hydra Head Records

1. Wings from Spine (6:47)
2. In That Corner (9:13)
3. Clean My Heart (11:05)
4. Every God Damn Thing (32:52)

Khanate was an extreme doom metal supergroup that brought together James Plotkin and Alan Dubin, two members of the defunct band OLD, as well as Tim Wyskida (of Blind Idiot God and Manbyrd) and Stephen O'Malley (of Burning Witch and Sunn O))) fame).

It was certainly sad to see Khanate go, as they really were one of the most talented modern doom bands around. Lots of bands try going the “play as slow as possible” route, but few manage to pull it off with any sense of conviction, and in the end just make it sound like they’re playing slow for the sake of playing slow. Khanate never fell into this trap, no matter how sparse some of their songs would get, and always had some sort of purpose for what was happening (or wasn’t happening, depending on how you look at it). While the self-titled debut was skin-slashing, ear-splitting, torturous DOOM, they later developed a sound less focused on heaviness and more on texture and tension, as seen on ‘Things Viral’ and the ‘Capture & Release’ EP. With that sound also came a more freeform type of approach to song structure and rhythm, and at times was taken to the point where it seemed to be completely void of both. ‘Clean Hands Go Foul’ takes this approach and pushes it to even greater extremes.

Pretty much the entire album seems to be complete absent of any form of coherency, rhythm, melody, structure, or anything else that could possibly deem this “proper music”. Some will undoubtedly see this as a bad thing, which is perfectly understandable. Then there are those who see this as a beneficial decision on the band’s part, as it gives them a whole other world to explore. Not only are they now able to tread new ground, but the seemingly improvised nature of the music just adds even more to the overall psychotic, twisted aura that made this band so good. No one else could create as much of an unsettling atmosphere as Khanate could, and this album just proves that statement even further.
-Wikipedia / Metal-Archives.com

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