Nonsun - Sun Blind Me

Things have been a little quite this last week, mainly due to suffering from post holiday blues and having to get back into the swing of work. You know how it is! It's not a surprise then that I'm now writing about a drone/doom/sludge band either. Nonsun are from Lviv in the Ukraine. This duo was founded in 2011, but waited until 2012 to release their debut EP Good Old Evil. Sun Blind Me was released on tape via Dutch label Breathe Plastic, with Danish label Drowning hosting a digital download version too. At this, point I would just like to spare a thought for the people who have been caught up in the unrest in the Ukraine and hope that they stay safe.

Tracklist:-

1. Rain Have Mercy
2. Forgotten Is What Never Was
3. Alphomega (Part 1: Sunlit Darkness)
4. Alphomega (Part 2: Upward Brightness)

Sun Blind Me begins with a quiet wave of drone, at the beginning of Rain Have Mercy. It lasts about two-minutes before Nonsun straddle into bass heavy doom. It’s heavy and sometimes off-kilter, with the vocals of Goatooth used sparingly. Things get interesting when the lead guitar kicks in, adding a new dimension to Nonsun’s sound. Nowadays, initial impressions are everything when it comes to music but underneath the layers of drone and doom, Nonsun provide some subtle moments of brilliance. I hope the rest of Sun Blind Me goes the same way.

Forgotten Is What Never Was seems mournfully low to begin with. The bass provides the majority of the song’s droning textures while the guitar and organ provide small flashes of light. Overall it’s eleven-minutes plus of instrumental pain and suffering, set to hauntingly heavy music. As with Rain Have Mercy, the vocals don’t feature until past the half-way point in the song and they’re not overused when they do.

Deafening, piercing feedback is the order of the day on Alphomega Part 1, at least during the intro anyway. The volume seems to rise as the different textures of noise are added and it almost sounds metallic at times. The meandering noise that features here is the perfect accompaniment to the rolling black clouds outside my window. Alphomega Part 1 lurches directly into Part 2, as if they were one song. It follows exactly the same path. After further glimpses of lead guitar, it’s over in the same way it started. 

Doom and it’s related sub-genres really seem to be taking over at the moment. Nonsun sit at the slower end of the spectrum (if that’s possible) but they make some great music and deserved to be heard by more people.

Stream/download Sun Blind Me here:-




You can also download in from Drowning here - http://drowning.cc/drone-doom-downloads/nonsun-sun-blind-me/

Tapes can be purchased from Breathe Plastic here - http://breatheplastic.bandcamp.com/merch.

Nonsun Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/NonsunDoom
Breathe Plastic Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/breatheplastic
Drowning Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/drowningcc