Sunn0))) & Boris

Altar

Southern Lord 2006

Not a split but a collaborative effort between these two legends: Sunn0))) and Boris, Altar is another release that attempts to achieve a cohesion of mood despite a variety of styles and methods.  It achieves this particular end with some success.  To me it feels very enigmatic.  I have listened to it numerous times and I am still not completely sure what to make of it all.  Etna opens the album in a droning doom style that I pretty much expected but my concentration on this song is disrupted by the overly active drumming which I found somewhat distracting.  The highlight of the album though is the dreamy yet summery feeling The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep) that calls to mind stretching out on a warm afternoon underneath a blue sky and soaking up the nostalgia of summers past.  N.L.T. passed me by forgettably.  It wasn't bad but it didn't pull anything out of me either.  Fried Eagle Mind hammered home the haunting mental images with its skilled use of subsonic whitenoise fuzz and oppressive female vocal chants.  Blood Swamp closes the album out as 14 minutes of layered sonic textures that build up and collapse down in a mind scarring bout of ebbing tides that pull you under and drown you in their throbbing arms.  Altar as a whole is kind of like passing through the various stages of a dream sometimes haunting, sometimes ominous, and sometimes warm and comforting.  I'm torn as to whether I think this album is a success though.  I mean I think it acheives its goal fairly well so in that respect it wins but I doubt I will be listening to it a lot because it seems a little too diverse and unfocused at times to me so in that regards it is a failure.  Or maybe it isn't.