The only other time I’ve personally written an article on a show with only one artist on the bill was Randy Travis back in October. The difference between country music and drone music is more drastic than night and day. It’s a swimming pool versus a black hole, a poodle versus a kratt, a boulder versus the crushing weight of existence… I was probably the only person there who had seen both acts live in person. Filling up the standing room area of one of Austin’s busiest music venues – Emo’s Austin – the atmospheric drone metal duo, Sunn O))), played a crushing set for those who were adventurous enough to withstand 120 decibels of constant punishing feedback.
Sunn O))) is a polarizing group. Imagine music with no time signature, no measurement of melody or traditional musical nuances, and songs that last anywhere from five to thirty minutes each. The duo started playing after eight, and didn’t finish until ten thirty, a whopping two plus hours of sonic intensity brought to Texas by the celebration of their recent tenth album release. Taking the album on tour around North America, the duo are continuing their nearly thirty-years of straight melodic transgression, and I was here for it. Shows like these are where music becomes something else. Not just a system of notes and rhythms and rules, but an idea of sensation, of spirituality, of boundary shattering intent. One hundred twenty minutes of straight drone music, only five songs on the setlist, no intermissions or breaks, just the sound of an ear shattering amount of reverb and feedback coming right back at your skull for the whole night. Being in the barricade right against those speakers made it feel like my organs were getting massaged. Each tone, each strum of the chord, each shifting decibel level felt like it was charging a different part of me. After my allotted time at the barricade, I had to step into the restroom and breathe for a moment. Then I was in the back, then I made it to the front, then I tried taking my earplugs out, then I walked back towards the merch table… Sunn O))) was an experience like no other that challenged me, lulling me into meditative trances and then shocking my whole body into a fevered and uncomfortable hug from a massive wall of sound. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Through smoke and punishing feedback, Sunn O))) performed a show that aimed to simultaneously comfort and disturb. Sometimes we concert goers forget that a show is a piece of performative art, not merely just entertainment. A show like Sunn O)))’s will remind you of that.
REMAINING TOUR DATES
APRIL 16 Chicago, IL / Salt Shed
APRIL 17 Detroit, MI / Russell Industrial Complex
APRIL 18 Iowa City, IA / Englert Theatre
APRIL 19 Omaha, NE / The Waiting Room
APRIL 20 Denver, CO / Ogden Theatre
APRIL 22 Boise, ID / Shrine Social Club
APRIL 24 Seattle, WA / Showbox SoDo
APRIL 25 Portland, OR / Roseland Theater
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PHOTO CREDIT: Live photos by Liam Tennant for ZRockR Magazine – @2026 – All Rights Reserved.