This fourth full-length album from the Warsaw-based Doom Metal outfit boasts an intriguing title and some fine playing, intimidatingly good at times, with a nice “live” sound. It proves to be an engrossing offering even if, despite the intense visuals and wacko wordplay of the band’s still-evolving “image” – all black crows and dust sheets, “shamanic” this and “prophetic” that – they turn out to be not so weird after all. Much of it is more straightforward than shamanic, more procedural than prophetic, more Pearl Jam than Tool. But there is certainly an epic sweep to it that helps pull you into their particular void.
Opener Crows sets things up nicely and God Emperor Of Dune builds and builds impressively before the vital elements of the Sunnata formula all come together with the propulsive A Million Lives, kicking into a higher gear with much wailing and gnashing. Singalong Black Serpent offers up some engaging slide guitar before rolling out into the desert in a caravan of cacophonous chants and chugs, sustained by lots of fuzzy, buzzy fretwork (Black Rebel Caravan Club, anyone?). The anthemic Volva (The Seeress) flirts with the mythic and the majestic, like Jim Morrison meets Ridley Scott, while finale Way Out proves to be nimble, confessional … and ever changing.
There’s certainly no lack of effort or determination, but a nagging feeling Sunnata haven’t QUITE found their magic touch just yet. Burning In Heaven, Melting On Earth undeniably adds up to one big black slab of sonorous sound, a monolith of metal, even. But if it were, for example, the monolith in Kubrick’s 2001, the apes might not have been gifted ALL the answers, and we might not be here now (are we still here now? Wait a second, I’ll check it out). Perhaps the next album will fill in any gaps in necessary knowledge, inspiration or revelation, heralding in that enigmatic Star Child of survival and sustained success.
By Callum Reid
Sunnata self release Burning In Heaven, Melting On Earth on 26 February