Sunn O))) and Om are two extreme (and very distinct) interpretations of the doom/stoner genre. Both contain members from very distinguished doom/stoner bands (Goatsnake/Khanate/Thorr’s Hammer & Sleep respectively). Sorry to state the obvious, but this seems appropriate given the crowd that have turned up to this gig, at this one of the trendiest of London venues, seem largely oblivious to this fact. Instead of the usual gnarled, bearded and blackened misfits (who are here but lurking ominously in the shadows wielding the claw of doom) I am surrounded by NME kids (‘good’ hair aplenty) and art school ATP fops (more ‘good’ hair, but with stupid hats and glasses too). The fact that Sunn O))) have become ‘trendy’ is one that I was largely oblivious to until now, but the ‘lambs to the slaughter’ atmosphere it lends to the evening makes it feel perfectly appropriate.

Om seem totally out of place in this largish, bright venue, and struggle to really get out of the starting blocks. The mix is all over the place particularly with the drums, which instead of underpinning Cisneros’s hypnotic bass sound more like someone was cooking popcorn somewhere out back. The addition of a crazy ascetic frantically wafting a tambourine and providing multi-instrumentalism accompanied by intermittent, semi-tuneful pig squeals does nothing to elevate this muted performance. I’ve never seen Om live but I always imagined that they belong in a small, dark auditorium with the bass turned up to 12, where the crowd shuts up, closes their eyes and saturates in the cosmic vibes. Wrong place, wrong crowd for Om then.

Any worries that Sunn O))) would befall the same fate are soon dispelled. A good 10 minutes of solid, bone rattling guitar/bass drone from the robed duo have the trendy kids looking decidedly confused and perturbed, but this is mere whimsy compared to what is to come.

Sunn O))) have essentially taken the doom and black metal aesthetics and turned them into minimalist performance art. On record they are interesting, but it’s impossible to really appreciate the truly malign spectacle that it is supposed to convey. If you want to experience this at home, then turn the stereo up full blast, switch off all the lights, set light to the sofa and then invite a serial killer in to join the party.

As the dense smoke (or perhaps funeral fog) billows across the stage you catch fleeting glimpses of messrs Anderson and O’Malley – dark spectres in ceremonial garb, statue-like but somehow frantic and intense. Towering in front the harrowing master of ceremonies Attila (a renowned black metal vocalist by the way NME kids) is imposing as he narrates our demise. Illuminated from below by a green haze, his snakelike hands signal dark semaphore while his terrifying growl threatens to bring the roof crashing in on us. For a period of a cappella snarling and chanting his magnificent voice tears through the crowd leaving those of good hair looking terrified and the rest of us awed.

As the drone returns and intensifies, Attila writhes, wraithlike in a column of thick smoke and green haze – smoke pours out from the arms and face aperture of his robe making for a truly ominous spectacle. By now the auditorium is thick with smoke and the view across the hypnotised heads of the crowd is like tombstones in cemetery mist.

Attila leaves Anderson and O’Malley to worry the foundations (and the indie kids) for a deafening while before returning in a multi-coloured, metallic, spiky suit. Like an evil technicolor dreamcoat, lasers shoot from his fists piercing the gloom to magnificent effect. The insane chanting and osteoporosis inducing noise finally builds to a pounding finale that’s both frightening and elating.

Sunn O))) gigs are not an occasion to guzzle beer, punch the air and sing along. They’re all about the intimidating atmosphere and earth shattering noise. At times it was a little tedious and laboured but the sheer majestic perversity of it all just keeps dragging you in to Sunn O))) nightmarish world, and oh what a wonderful world!

I’m not ready to publish my top 10 albums yet – I have to torture myself over this for a little while yet, plus there’s some bits and pieces that I’ve not heard yet that I wish to hear before making my choice.

These are my favourite tracks recorded this year as they stand right now. I have no doubt that this will change within minutes of me hitting publish, but I’ve got to stick a stake in the ground somewhere. They are in no particular order, as attempting to do so would certainly prove too much for my fragile musical sensibilities.

Here we go:

• Pelican – Glimmer (What We All Come To Need) – A gorgeous instrumental slow burner
• Om – Thebes (God is Good) – Hypnotic, epic, looooong
• Alice in Chains – Looking in View (Black Gives Way to Blue) – Like being sat on by a house
• The Devil’s Blood – The Anti-Kosmic Magik (The Time of No Time Evermore) – A guitar duel to die for
• The Devin Townsend Project – Heaven Send (Ki) – Wacky, but in a mature way
• Griftegard – Charles Taze Russell (Solemn Sacred Severe) – The album title pretty much describes this perfectly
• Photonic – Customer Loyalty (Recorded Contact) – Randomness from New Zealand
• Mastodon – The Czar (Crack in the Skye) – Epic, schizophrenic, progressive and loud
• Middle Class Rut – I Guess You Could Say (25 Years EP) – It’s shallow but cheerful
• No Made Sense – The Epillanic Chorigi (The Epillanic Chorigi) – Neurosis style progressive heaviness

Notable omissions:

Various other tracks from both Black Gives Way to Blue, Recorded Contact and Crack in the Skye could have made it in there, but I didn’t want to clutter it with multiple tracks from a single band. Baroness’s Blue Record deserves a mention – as a whole it’s a brilliant album, but individually none of the tracks stood out enough to warrant inclusion. Other top tracks include:

Lamb of God – Reclamation
Extreme – Run
Pixie Lott – Boys and Girls
Dycian Maze – The Hand Inside
TrippyWicked – Movin On

This is all very nice, but the fact is, I’ve had a year of musical discovery, so much of the stuff that I’ve loved this year wasn’t recorded this year, which is why I don’t feel very satisfied with this list…but I’ll save those for another post.

Supergroup. Say it out loud “Supergroup”. Does that word leave a bitter taste in your mouth? So many enterprises of exquisite promise, so much shattered hope. Approach all supergroups with scepticism, you say, and rightly so.

So is (Wino+Om+Neurosis+Melvins) > (Wino+Om+Neurosis+Melvins)? That remains to be seen, however it does add up to a stoner/doom/post-rock/prog party to which we should all turn up and revel. Shrinebuilder is a real meeting of minds. The various styles weave in and out of each other and melt, blend and bend to fit a new mould that overall is not quite any of them. It is at times, however, each of them. With Wino, Kelly and Cisneros all taking turns on the mic, you sometimes feel like you’re listening to 3 different bands, often in the same song.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t hang together. Some how they’ve made it sound like these 3 wildly different styles belong together. Underpinned by Cisneros’s hypnotic bass, and sheened with Neurosis style atmospherics and post-hardcore aggression, Wino’s trademark psychedelic guitars drive us through this eerie landscape. However, it’s the southern tinged post-rock soundscapes that really define the sound here so it transcends the component parts.

Almost a genre it itself, this is a singular debut and delivers the sort of quality and creativity that you’d expect from such an influential posse. It’s still too much of a sketch to really be the collective masterwork that these guys should be capable of, but if there’s a sense that Shrinebuilder are still finding their feet with this first offering, I absolutely can’t wait to see what happens when they do.

Buy on Amazon

Listen on Myspace

What I spent my hard earned cash on recently.

Completely failing to do the honourable thing, Alice in Chains released the controversial comeback-after-loosing-a-key-member album and managed not to offend everyone, in fact, anyone. Black Gives Way to Blue is nothing short of stunning. Dark, brooding, sludgy but with lashings of gorgeous melody and soaring vocal harmonies that evoke the spirit of Layne Stayley without kicking his corpse. William Duval does an impressive job of stepping into giant, baggage laden shoes and even manages to shine in places. However, Cantrell with his devastating riffs and sound defining harmonies is the star here…and perhaps he always was?

Megadeth never went away. Some (including me) wish they had. Mustain may have reinvented my Megadeth’s sound many a time, but he’s never managed to come close to capturing the magic of the first 5 albums (and most specifically Rust in Peace). Endgame is no exception. It maybe a tour de force of modern thrash, but it’s not hard to stand out from that particular crowd, and Endgame fails to really excite or challenge. Comparisons with Death Magnetic are beside the point (I happen to think that Metallica’s is the better album, as untrendy as that my be to admit), Megadeth are hiding their lack of creativity behind an (admittedly dazzling) array of technical expertise. Entertaining but not essential.

Ever wanted to un-hear an album so that you could fall in love with it all over again? This is what I felt about Baroness’s Red Album. Since no technology has been invented to enable this (other than perhaps a carefully applied cricket bat to the head) my only hope was that their follow-up The Blue Record would have the same affect on me. Sadly, I was disappointed. Despite the fact that Baroness are still at the top of their game, The Blue Album just doesn’t pack the same punch as its predecessor. All the ingredients are still there, but the exhilarating instrumental flourishes that really define their sound manifest as more traditional prog meandering. Although I’m still in this for the long haul the romance just isn’t there anymore.

I picked up on Every Time I Die with their last record The Big Dirty. I was charmed by their lyrical satire and swaggering grooves. Expeditions into their previous works failed to excite me in the same way. So I wasn’t particularly pleased on discovering that their new album New Junk Aesthetic was a return to the older, more hardcore sound. They obviously lost their bottle. Unadventurous and uninteresting.

Om’s groovy repetition and monotonous chanting generally either sends you to sleep or into a nirvana like transcendental plain. I generally just find it soothing. God is Good is no great departure in terms of overall intent, however the sound has taken on a cinematic feel perhaps making it more accessible to the masses. This is nice, but it actually detracts from the minimalist, hypnotic groove that really defines their sound. That said, I quite like the eastern flavourings in their own right, but I think it will leave most Om fans feeling like they only got half an album.

I’m not sure what to say about the new Pelican album What We All Come to Need. More of the same as the last album. Unchallenging but pleasant enough.

Grind Madness at the BBC documents the legendary Peel Sessions with Napalm Death, Extreme Noise Terror, Bolt Thrower et al. It’s a tonne of fun and has some great packaging. As a historical document it is nigh-on genre defining. Utterly recommended for all fans of extreme music.