Sunn O))) & Nurse with Wound – The Iron Soul of Nothing

November 29, 2011 • Ideologic Organ

I've had this album kicking around since it came out in late 2011 and have only now remembered it exists. Any collaboration Sunn O))) does always seems to work out majestically (or close enough), and Nurse with Wound is probably one of the best candidates for such a collaboration. Unfortunately I won't say that it turned out quite as good as I hoped, but even so this is still a somewhat interesting album and at the very least one for the die-hard fans.

"Ash on the Trees" sounds basically like what you'd expect—we have Nurse with Wound's pants-wettingly-frightening noisescapes and Sunn O)))'s meandering doomy guitar, all wrapped up in an oppressively dark occult atmosphere. I've always though that Sunn O))) can get a little boring when it's just their plain guitar doom and having some extra elements to spice things up really helps (see Monoliths & Dimensions for one), and Nurse with Wound's particular brand of noise goes very well with the sort of aesthetic Sunn O))) is always trying to have. That track has a very aggressive aspect to the noise and how it drives the guitar lines and vocals forward. (Speaking of vocals, though, that's always something that could have been handled better. There are very few times when a Sunn O))) release has vocals in it that work well, but this isn't really one of them. When they aren't repetitive, they sound silly instead.)

As for the remaining three tracks, it feels like things kind of fell off the rails. The album just becomes slightly-noisy droning without a whole lot of substance to it. While it's no surprise that all the tracks are quite long, I don't think there's really enough going on in most of them to justify the fourteen-to-eighteen minute runtimes. I get the need for buildups and long blocks of sound, but there's a point where things get too long. And yes, that applies even when the buildups are good (as they are here)! Like I love the ambient drone of "Dysnystaxis" with its dissonant chimes and lonely violin, but after a while I get impatient. It doesn't go anywhere or do anything. Both "Ra at Dawn" tracks are even worse in this regard. They are actually both really interesting tracks and have a lot of different things going on that develop in a cool way, but because they're so long and drawn-out it's hard to even notice any of it. Take the same tracks and scrunch them down to half the length and it'd be amazing because you'd get to appreciate the ebb and flow of the drones... but that just doesn't happen.

On the whole, this isn't the best way to experience either band. I don't think anybody is completely on top of their game on this album; they've both released material that are far better than Iron Soul. But I think this album was still worth a listen, at least as long as you know what you're getting into. There's still plenty on here to enjoy; you just have to be patient and look around for it. It's too bad they couldn't do more of the ritual-occult stuff of the first track. Maybe some other time.