Pyroclasts - Sunn0))) - Review
is an experimental drone metal band who has been releasing material for over twenty years and has been pioneering and innovating within the drone genre for most of their career. The group released their 8th proper studio album Life Metal earlier this year to generally favorable reviews. Pyroclasts was recorded in the same sessions as Life Metal and is made up of four long tracks just like Life.
Review By Lavender:
Life Metal was the best of the last few Sunn 0)) releases but that didn't have me convinced they were onto some new career renaissance. I had a feeling much like many projects released so close to each other that Pyroclasts would just be the session material that wasn't good enough for Life Metal, and most records like it can't be as good as Untitled Unmastered or Amnesiac. Thankfully the creative wave the band was on seems to run deeper than Life Metal because Pyroclasts serves up some excellent moments of its own.
One of the first major changes on Pyroclasts is the transition from the bright and heavy sound of the last record to the more natural and tonal approach to this record, highlighted by my favorite tracks that open up and close the record. Frost is a sweeping and bellowing song that starts the album off with whispy and breezy chords hanging over the songs drone giving it such a natural feeling that can be lost in many drone records. The track gives the impression of something truly epic being displayed before your very eyes and the more dense the track becomes the more epic it gets in energy and scope for a grand opening statement. The closer Ascension is also a great track that lives up to its name closing off the record with a triumphant crescendo that develops over a long series of passages switching between the intimate and the grand for a song that I really enjoy.
The two tracks in the middle of the record show a bit less creativity. Kingdoms is a harsher and more conventional drone with sounds dominating each other for space in the mix making for a far more chaotic progression. I think this is fine but some of the passages in the middle of the track and one long one at the end loose the chaotic energy by setting into a very predictable pattern that makes for some of the records weakest moments. Ampliphaedies is a pretty technically impressive song strictly from a songwriting perspective with a huge variety of passages that keep it constantly evolving however they come in an order that seems entirely devoid of any real emotion. Not that the music is made to be overwhelmingly emotional in the first place but the technical impressiveness of the track isn't enough to make it feel like a real song instead of a series of loosely connected vignettes in a random order.
Despite some of my complaints Pyroclasts is a pretty solid drone record from one of the best acts to ever do it and while its big brother Life Metal is likely to go down as the better and more influential release there is reason to give some of Pyroclasts an honest try, you'll probably find something you like. 6/10
Check out my review of Sunn0)))'s last record here
