“Play your gloom axe Stephen O’Malley…sub-bass clinging to the sides of the valley”. Somehow Stephen O’Malley’s career not only survived his name being invoked in ludicrous fashion by Julian Cope (on the Sunn O))) album White 2), but seems to have flourished. The long-awaited new Sunn O))) album, Monoliths and Dimensions, is probably so long-awaited as O’Malley has been involved in so many other projects, not least his role in the inception of the third Aethenor album, Faking Gold And Murder. These new records are the richest and most rewarding of each band’s discography.

O’Malley isn’t the only stellar name on the credits of Faking Gold And Murder – it is also notable for the appearance of Current 93 vocalist David Tibet, who adds his shamanic, apocalyptic presence to several tracks. As usual, Aethenor tracks flow on ominous drones, enlivened by bell-like percussion, but here it all sounds notably fuller than before. Opening track “I” opens with some rampaging free percussion, before Tibet emerges from the gloom muttering about “waves of teeth”. “IV” is a notable departure for the band, and the best track on here, setting Tibet’s softer evocations atop a quiet hum and twinkling, spacey keyboard melodies.

To say that Monoliths and Dimensions is ambitious would be an understatement. It begins typically enough, all gloom axe and sub-bass (heh), with Attila Csihar’s low vocal tones reeking of pure malevolence, as if the rocks was opening up to let hell seep out. Just another Sunn O))) album, then? Wrong. Listen closely to the background of “Agharta”, and you’ll hear some contorted strings mixed in with the Earth-style guitar drones, squealing in sickening fashion, and eventually being joined by some unearthly wailing brass. In following track “Big Church“, a female choir salute a sky crackling with murderous guitar. All this thoughtful, unshowy orchestration complements (even completes) the bands music magnificently, adding whole new levels of sonic interest, and at times sheer horror, to the music. A new peak is scaled in the closing track “Alice” with the addition of trombone, played by none other than Julian Priester (ex-Arkestra, and a superb choice). His soft, slow notes wrap themselves in a cloak of crashing guitar and ascend heavenwards while singing gloriously; a flicker of harp signifying their arrival. This is an astonishing and wholly unexpected ending to what by any earthly standards is one of the albums of the year. Not that Sunn O))) work to earthly standards, of course.

Faking Gold And Murder is available from VHF, while Monoliths and Dimensions is out now on Southern Lord. Somehow, I haven’t even mentioned the latest KTL album, or the lovely engraved 12″ released by O’Malley on the Table Of The Elements. All in the first six months of the year. If he can keep up this work rate and quality control, I can’t wait to see what the second half of the year holds.