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Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson are the two members of Seattle drone metal band, Sunn O))). Kannon is their seventh LP and their first solo release since Monoliths & Dimensions in 2009; its sprawling multi-instrumentalism, has been replaced by the bleak sparsity of their earlier work. Since then, O’Malley and Anderson have separately gone on to form other bands, score films, and set up record labels, so Kannon is not only a reunion, but also a stylistic return to earlier work. With only three songs and clocking in at barely thirty-three minutes, Sunn are playing fast and loose with the tag “album”. Sunn have always embraced religious symbols by dressing in robes, playing live shows in cathedrals and singing in Gregorian chant, but they seem to be taking this idea further still by naming the album after Bu, the Buddhist God/Goddess of compassion and mercy. It’s a clear statement about how they view their music. While on first listen, it may seem farcical to equate this brooding and imposing album with compassion or mercy, there is certainly solace to be gained from being engulfed by this powerful and patient creation.

The three tracks faithfully illustrate Sunn’s modus operandi: namely, playing chords so loudly and for so long that the listener can hear and appreciate every little change and inflection. Achingly slow guitar and reverb wrestle, churning like a choppy ocean, with the writhing vocals of Attila Csihar (Hungarian-born singer for Norwegian black metal band Mayhem) snaking its way around the monolithic sounds. This heaving body of noise would be a hot mess in the hands of some, but its containment is accomplished in no small part thanks to the refined production of Randall Dunn. The main detraction from the album is that it is hurried in places. For a band that specialises in emphasising the most minute details in noise, a lot of the most intriguing sounds are pushed to the fringes and not developed properly. The album is short but the length of each of the tracks really allows you to explore the murky and cataclysmic world which O’Malley and Anderson have meticulously constructed.