It’s just a fact: autumn is the time to listen to metal. With earlier nightfalls, a chill in the air, Halloween and the equally creepy Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays en route, and darkness and mystery seeping and creeping into our lives, I celebrate with the music of Sunn O))), the most influential drone metal band of the last 25 years, if not of all time.

Formed in Seattle as a tribute to the similarly iconic metal band Earth, Sunn O))) (it’s pronounced “sun,” and it’s also the name of an amp) is known to drag out notes, chords, and drones to mind-warping length. The experience of hearing any sound, especially a heavy or harsh one that provocatively hits your natural pain points, is bound to shift when you’ve been sitting with it for ten minutes. In this way, the band’s simpler work is almost like a meditation practice or at least an exercise in endurance. That doesn’t explain, though, why Sunn O))) has done more to endear hipsters and normies alike to metal, traditionally the most defiantly tacky and unfashionable of genres outside of Gathering of the Juggalos.

It helps that they’ve collaborated with icons and innovators inside and outside of Metal World, including Boris, Scott Walker, Steve Albini, Nurse With Wound, and countless others. Despite their robes and sloganeering, true artists can see the band’s artistry.

The drones can soothe like a warm bath (even as they kill all the mold in your bathroom, along with your cats, plants, and any unfortunate one-celled organisms that get too close to your speakers), while the band’s more complex and experimental work stretches the parameters of metal and reconfigures its relationship to music at large. It might not be comfortable to throw devil horns for 20 minutes at a time, but you kind of have to.

The Sunn O))) catalog is sprawling, intimidating, and uneven, so, just in time for the spooky season, here are three lynchpin albums to start with.

Black One

They’d kicked around since 1998, but it was their first classic, 2005’s Black One, that drew the notice of the wider music world. It’s still the best fusion of their cathartic, Sabbath-derived riffage and their penchant for full-length epics that stay on theme for ten minutes or more without wearing out their welcome. It contains some of the best-known “hits” (most notably the harsh and hypnotic “It Took the Night to Believe”) and remains as good a place as any to start with Sunn O))).

Monoliths and Dimensions

A set of four long-form pieces incorporating horns, strings, and a full-on choir, this was the record that showed off Sunn O)))’s creative ambition, not to mention its enviable range of A-list collaborators. It’s not every fan’s favorite, but it’s symphonic, anthemic, wildly complex and inventive, and gloriously over-the-top, rewarding repeated listenings to dig through all its sonic secrets. This is the artsy one.

Life Metal

Some fans who hate Monoliths and Dimensions love Life Metal, the band’s relatively stripped-down back-to-basics album from 2019. I think they’re both swell. With just their core elements and Albini’s famously sparse production, Life Metal lives up to its title, distilling the raw churn and paradoxical calming power of their music. Despite their gestures toward parody and postmodernism, it’s clear by now that their serious side has brought metal into mass consciousness in a new and potent way. And there’s no better time to get into them than the fall.

Recommend If You Like is not owned or funded by a billionaire or even a millionaire. We do have a Patreon. If you can’t afford to become a patron, please sign up to our mailing list. It’s free and we’re asking here instead of a pop-up. Pop-ups are annoying.