This past Friday, April 3rd, experimental metal band Sunn O))) dropped their self-titled album, their 10th full-length and first for Sub Pop. The LP was recorded at Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Washington in January 2025 and co-produced by Brad Wood, best known for his work with Liz Phair, Veruca Salt, and Ben Lee, along with our phriends Skating Polly. And today Sunn O))), comprised of Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley, are officially a week into an international headlining tour in support of the album that will have them returning to Union Transfer this coming Saturday, April 11th.
Sunn O))), which features six songs and clocks in at 80 minutes, is the first Sunn O))) release to exclusively feature the instrumentation of O’Malley and Anderson. However, it features a number of collaborations of additional artistic mediums. Two paintings by New York School artist Mark Rothko serve as the front and back covers of the album. Robert Macfarlane (whose 2025 novel Is a River Alive? provided a major inspiration behind the songs) wrote Sunn O)))’s extensive liner notes. And French artist Elodie Lesourd provided illustrations for the LP’s inner sleeves and album merch.
The self-titled LP has already received a plethora of critical acclaim, with The Quietus naming it “Album of the Week” and characterizing it as, “…a beguiling work that distills the overwhelming impact of nature on the human psyche into 80 minutes of utterly transcendent avant metal,” while PASTE called it, “…a characteristically loud yet dynamic tribute to the beauty and strength of our environment,” and the New York Times wrote, “…a hyperdistilled version of its core aesthetic, in which snarling distortion and glinting feedback ooze from the speakers like the dense fog that fills the air at the band’s shows.”
And while I haven’t gotten a chance to chat with Greg Anderson or Stephen O’Malley recently, I did talk to Anderson (also the co-founder of Southern Lord Records) in late 2022, just prior to Sunn O)))’s Shoshin (初心) Duo US Tour, which featured their last stop at Union Transfer. Anderson told me of the band’s local memories from the 215, their infamous live shows (which feature exceptionally high volumes and a profound abundance of fog), and 25 years of both Sunn O))) and Southern Lord Records. Read my 2022 chat with Greg Anderson, get your tickets to see Sunn O))) April 11th at Union Transfer below, and listen to “Does Anyone Hear Like Venom?” and “Butch’s Guns” from the band’s eponymous album.
*Get your tickets here.
