Review Summary: The powerful and haunting voice of Scott Walker, much loved classic, paired with the avant-garde guitar drones of Sunn O))). This shouldn't work - but it does.
When I first found out that Scott Walker and Sunn O))) were collaborating - via the announcement of "Scott O)))" - I was apprehensive. I wasn't hopeless, especially after listening to Bish Bosch (Walker's 2012 album), which certainly had the extremely experimental element to it that would go perfectly with Sunn. The question wasn't IF it would work, the question was HOW it would work. I was not disappointed.
"Brando", the first track of the album, starts off instantaneously with Walker's powerful voice backed by some very regular sounding guitar work. And then, at around the 35 second mark, the first traces of Sunn's crushing drone appears, combined with tension-building percussion, giving the whole song a sort of creeping effect. Walker's utterance - "A beating would do me a world of good" - reveals just how dark and twisted the rest of this album is going to be. An incessant, high pitched tone repeats in the background, adding new levels to this bleak soundscape. The track reaches its peak with some vocal distortion, a powerful blast of Walker's voice, before settling back down into the regular sounding guitar riffs. The peak of this track is disappointing, however - it doesn't seem to have any lasting effect on the song, there is no long comedown, it just seems to happen.
"Herod 2014" is perhaps the track in which Sunn's influence is most felt. "Brando" felt more like a track from Bish Bosch, whereas you would be forgiven for thinking "Herod 2014" was purely a Sunn track from the very beginning. Walker's mournful voice cuts through the drone - "She's hidden her babies away" - and coupled with the strange high pitched noises that occasionally accompany it, creates a completely haunting atmosphere.
"Bull" is perhaps the climactic track of the album. Walker's voice appears at times distorted, backed with an equally as distorted guitar riff, above a constant low-end drone and an alarm-like high pitched tone (which seems to be a repeating tool in the album). The track calms down for a short while, before once again coming to that intense, unsettling distorted sound at the start. If a track was to define the album, I would think it would certainly be "Bull".
Despite the climactic nature of "Bull", "Fetish" seems to be the most unsettling track on the album. The track starts very minimal, the only accompaniment to Walker's a vague, wind-like noise, and slowly builds into a cacophony of noise calmed down by the following drone, building down to almost isolate Walker's voice again.
"Lullaby" is my personal favourite on this album. Beginning with the distinctive drone, Walker's sombre voice is gradually introduced, broken up only by very faint percussion. Very suddenly, it breaks into Walker belting out "Lullaby, la la" accompanied by various noises which only serve to further unsettle the listener, and a sudden key change in a background drone further intensifies this. This happens once more, before the track very slowly calms down into almost complete silence aside from Walker's voice, singing us out of the album.
This album is a testament to the versatility of avant-garde music, and proves that age should be no barrier in musicians experimenting. Although this ended disastrously for the late Lou Reed and Metallica (which frankly I was terrified of when it came to Soused), it has definitely worked for Scott and Sunn O))). Sunn O))) can put this amongst a long line of successful collaborations, alongside "Terrestrials" (with Ulver) and Altar (with Boris). My only disappointment with the album was that it felt primarily like a Scott Walker album. I appreciate that Sunn gave Scott room to work, and there are definitely times where you can more than hear their contributions, but I feel as though this could easily have been a successor to Bish Bosch and The Drift.
