Soused is surprisingly melodic, Sunn O))) provide a menacing but rich backdrop to Walker’s distinctive baritone.
All bases are covered on this, the hugest, most monolithic album of 2014.
Pairing the somber and overpowering baritone bravado of Walker—not to mention his mad-poet mystique—with the subterranean thunder and tumbling towers of holy-hell from the core duo of Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson seemed like the perfect marriage. And it is.
Walker's and Sunn 0)))'s individual identities, while always on full display, are brought jaggedly and thunderously together in an enthralling recording that equals the sum of its mighty parts.
This is more than an album—this is an exemplar of contemporary boundary-pushing art to be consumed slowly and patiently.
Given how far out Scott Walker had stepped with 2012’s complex and challenging, allusive and abusive Bish Bosch, the five tracks which comprise Soused seem almost mainstream by comparison.
The result is the most accessible Scott Walker album since Tilt, perhaps even longer.
Latin lamentations and oscillating interferences spin sinful tales of transgression and violation, with a flagellating undercurrent of austerity, to create an uneasy, intuitive, idiosyncratic masterpiece.
Soused is a powerful and arresting album that will appeal to fans of Scott Walker's later work.
Soused may not be the best record either Sunn O))) or Walker have released in the last few years ... but it’s still an endlessly compelling work, the match between singular solo artist and the pivotal group every bit as thrilling as you’d expect.
‘Soused’ manages to feel understated and ripe for listeners to engage with entirely on their own terms.
Soused, with its impenetrable construct and heavy ambition, delivers on many fronts, most notable of which is in its thoughtfully composed immensity.
Their collaborative LP Soused feels more like an event and an experience than a vital, persevering record for either party involved. It’s good and, at times, completely absorbing, especially when Walker and the amplifiers seem to be fighting on the same side of a great battle.
Dense and demanding, Soused will not be topping the album charts. But it is the kind of obliteratingly intense, glamorously weird avant-metal epic that Lou Reed and Metallica never made.
This teaming of a gifted poet and bruising metalheads is like Lou Reed and Metallica's Lulu – but about half as long, and about twice as heavy.
While Sunn o))) and Scott Walker make the effort to accommodate one another on this new collaborative album, the chemistry isn't as explosive as I had hoped.
There’s simply not enough sonic variation going on here to make Soused nearly as compelling as its respective creators’ past efforts.
For Sunn O))), there was more breathing space on their recent collaboration with Ulver than on Soused. For Walker, after Bish Bosch, it’s what has become business as usual.
1 | Brando 8:45 | 63 |
2 | Herod 2014 12:02 | 62 |
3 | Bull 9:23 | 62 |
4 | Fetish 9:09 | 60 |
5 | Lullaby 9:24 | 60 |
#2 | / | The Quietus |
#4 | / | The Wire |
#4 | / | Tiny Mix Tapes |
#5 | / | Crack Magazine |
#12 | / | Clash |
#18 | / | Fopp |
#23 | / | MOJO |
#25 | / | PopMatters |
#33 | / | The Guardian |
#46 | / | No Ripcord |