Nonsun - Blood & Spirit

A Closer Listen

Lviv, Ukraine quartet Nonsun did not write their sophomore album about the invasion, yet like Kotra’s Radness Methods, Blood & Spirit matches the tumult of its time.  The band writes, “Never could we imagine how painfully relevant the album’s title would sound near the time of release… Wish it wouldn’t.  Though initially meant to have a personal meaning, obviously now it resonates with much more…”

It’s no coincidence that the LP is released on Good Friday.  Not only do these tracks speak of physical conflict, but according to Nonsun, “The album title refers to spiritual struggles through the bloodiest of times. The five tracks, in a sense, are yearnings, or prayers, thrown into the void.”

A tone of defiance is palpable throughout the set, the quartet less likely to stare into the abyss as to scream into the aforementioned void: question upon question, without answer.  Those who hear the music during the invasion may ask, Where is home?  Who are we as a people?  If the buildings are gone, what spirit survives?  “A Wizard Grieving Over the Loss of Magic” begins tenderly, but when the song slams into Black Sabbath-esque riffs, it fills the space meant for grief with anger.

There’s no backing down for the people of Ukraine: an attitude that has won global admiration.  This energy is channeled by the aggression of first single “That Which Does Not Kill.”  Nietsche’s complete phrase is even more relevant: “Out of life’s school of war—what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”  Giant growls, monster riffs and a sense of unbridled passion makes this track the album’s stronghold.  The music stops short mid piece and starts again.  Nonsun does seem strong.  Those who listen to their music may feel strong in return.

“Days of Thunder Bring New Wisdom” is filled with punishing passages, but these recede to make way for military snares: a sound that is downright frightening in the current context.  When these are followed by a low, monklike chant, the contrast between violence and prayer is laid bare.  The subdued ending leads to a softer start in “Guilt, Disgust, Disaster.”  There is still time for reflection, between the bombs, in the quiet after the explosions, in the long, dark, sleepless nights of the soul as strangers and friends huddle together for safety, jumping at every sudden sound.  Why have you forsaken me? cried Jesus on the cross.  There was no answer, save for the rumble of thunder and a darkened sky.  The song ends in a siren-like synth: emergency, emergency.

Blood & Spirit may be unrelenting, but the LP is also empowering.  One might play this music for freedom fighters, for citizens constructing hedgehogs and mixing Molotov cocktails.  What began as a prayer has become a scream.  The finale is haunted by intimations of church organ.  Perhaps Nonsun has its answer after all.  If the music now serves a higher purpose, might this be evidence of a divine hand?  (Richard Allen)

The Quietus

Early spring always finds me surfing a wave of doom, which might seem strange given that here in Metro Detroit things are finally regreening, photosynthesising, sprouting. The deeply depressing grey-browns of March – the trash hung up in bare deciduous shrubbery, the blackened remainders of the snowplow's work – are being overgrown or have melted. Things look alive again. But here I am, reaching for all things heavy, hauling out my Harvey Milk CDs, my Weedeater, Aseethe, The Body, whatever. Noise rock and heavy psychedelia, too. Maybe it's the allergic fug about April, or its low hanging clouds and atmospheric volatility. There's doom-y ambience, too, here in the suburbs. The drone of planes flying low to avoid weather systems, the din of actual Weed Eaters and power tools and the desperate rush to begin long overdue infrastructure maintenance made even more desperate by winter’s destructive tendencies. That’s the score of the season, and it is heavy. So, perhaps my vernal listening is of a piece, feeding into and playing off of that. Anyway, all of this is to say that right now, I am one with the low-end, at peace with the riff, receptive to all things crushing. And as fate and providence would have it, it’s now that Nonsun’s latest LP Blood & Spirit has found its way into my inbox.

The band describe themselves as “doom/post-rock/drone/experimental”, but one look at titles like ‘A Wizard Grieving Over The Loss Of Magic’ and that info becomes redundant. Track lengths, too, let you know what you’re in for. The shortest here is 7:41, the other four clock in at over ten minutes. This is roaring, stomping doom that isn’t afraid to get Earth-y or let its inner Mogwai take over from time to time.

The aforementioned ‘Wizard’ opens the album. It features, in order: a pastoral intro, some majestic guitar churn, monastic vocal drones, chugging riffage, atmospheric synths, literal roaring, an almost ambient interlude with more monk vox, and – finally – a spare percussion and synth drone outro. It’s so wicked. In lesser hands it might come off as ridiculous, but here it’s perfect and often surprising. Done poorly, doom metal can often feel template driven and posey, but for the truly inspired, that very same template can be subverted, allowing an artist to throw curveball after curveball. Nonsun are truly inspired, and damn, it's delightful.

Elsewhere, ‘Guilt, Disgust, Disaster’ never drifts too far from post-rock. It resists the full-on guitar skuzz and thundering drums of a lumbering, lurching beast like ‘That Which Does Not Kill’. Instead, its drums are lighter on their feet, its guitars mostly content to shimmer and sometimes crunch, seemingly in honour of those feedbackers who came before. It’s still heavy, but measured and graceful, too. Then the noir sax shows up and takes the track somewhere else altogether for a little while, before sweeping strings kick in and the thing explodes like Mogwai songs used to. There’s a masterful ebb and flow to these compositions. Like a river, you get caught up in the current and just go with it.

Last fall, not far from where I live, a weed dispensary was destroyed when the ground beneath it buckled and improbably swelled, lifting it high up into the air as a foul odour and watery, yellowish ooze spilled from the cracking, emerging mound and out onto the street. For a couple of days afterward – before it was demolished with all of its product still inside, unreachable – the wreckage of the building swayed uneasily atop its new perch. I don’t know about you, but if you ask me, there’s no better metaphor for the peak doom metal vibe. Do your tunes feel like a head shop being consumed by an as-yet-unexplained geologic or Anthropocene anomaly? Congratulations! You’ve reached top-tier pinnacle doom! On Blood & Spirit, Nonsun scale this summit again and again, riding bucking, displaced concrete to a heavy nirvana.

It seems impossible and irresponsible not to mention that the members of Nonsun hail from Lviv, Ukraine and are, like many artists in areas of crisis, more in need of support than ever. But before you accuse me of burying the lede, consider that where they’re from is more or less beside the point, which is: Blood & Spirit is rad as hell. Further consider that a record this rad – a record written well before the current invasion began – deserves to be heard without the baggage of a horrible humanitarian crisis. To think, “This jam seems oddly prescient of the current geopolitical situation,” after listening to ‘Days Of Thunder Bring New Wisdom’ does the band (and the track) a bit of a disservice. The invasion doesn't make Nonsun any more or less interesting, or worthy of being heard, or any better or worse. Without a war, all you’d say is, “This is so sick.” Blissfully emptyheaded, you could gaze into a freak Michigan whiteout dumping inches of snow on new shoots and daffodils the day after Easter, Nonsun raging in your headphones all the while, and feel as if Blood & Spirit caused the sky to cave in.

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