Today, Copenhagen-based sludge/post-metal unit LLNN is pleased to stream their Unmaker full-length in its crushing entirety. The special premiere comes on the eve of the record’s official release this Friday, September 24th via Pelagic Records.
A stupefyingly unforgiving affair, Unmaker is at once abrasive and vile, at times effervescent and escharotic, and finally absolutely smothering, suffocating, terminal; a thundering sonic tale about how technology, in combination with certain power structures, is transforming humanity, essentially affecting human values, and becoming an end in itself.
Upon their premiere of “Obsidian,” Revolver Magazine hailed, “…avalanching bass rumbles and violent drums bash the groove into the ground with the force of King Kong punching the earth.” No Clean Singing crowns the record, “epic and crushing,” while Veil Of Sound declares Unmaker, “pummeling, intense, remorseless music but in a stroke of almost cosmic genius,” adding, “it’s also at the same time, melodic, thoughtful, and wonderous.”
View the band’s previously released video for “Obsidian” HERE and “Desecrator” HERE.
Unmaker was produced by Jacob Bredahl at Dead Rat Studio and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege with sound design production by the Sejersen brothers at Gravitated Sound Studio. The record will will be released on CD, digitally and on vinyl in five different color variants. All variants come with a second LP featuring only the synth sounds, titled Sonic Fragments From Unmaker. These fragments on their own — exposed and without the rest of the band — constitute an unrhythmical, parallel universe to the album, and allow an interesting peak into the band’s dark cosmos.
Fans of Cult Of Luna, Celeste, Godflesh, The Body, Amenra, Love Sex Machine, Cryptopsy, Year Of No Light, Neurosis, or the soundtracks from Alien, Blade Runner, Arrival, or Hereditary, pay heed.
LLNN burst onto the scene with 2016’s critically acclaimed debut album Loss, a sheer display of “absolute raging rawness,” as Terrorizer put it.
But there is much more to the band’s sound. Noted the Sludgelord accurately, “the wavering drone synths that are effortlessly merged with a raw hardcore-driven darkness define the subtle idiosyncratic nuances of LLNN’s very unsubtle, painfully overwhelming sound.”
Following European tours with Bison, performances at esteemed festivals like Roskilde, Roadburn, and Arctangent and a split EP with Wovoka, LLNN returned with sophomore album Deads in 2018, an album that felt more compact, yet more complex and simultaneously organic. The band further explored the coalescence of the guitar and bass – axis with keys player Ketil G. Sejersen’s synth layers, a direction that is now further pursued on Unmaker. In fact, LLNN’s contemporary heaviness is not just “dense, suffocating tracks that build and crash,” or, “buried vocals coming from under thick guitars and pounding drums (Decibel).” It’s also the very dominant synths that evoke the feel and vibe of dystopian, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi movies, inspired by composers like Brad Fiedel, Vangalis, John Carpenter, and Stanley Kubrick as much as by sci-fi/horror games like Silent Hill, Dead Space, Halo, and Limbo. It all comes together to tell a tale of how progress becomes regress, depending on the angle of the observer and the standards of appraisal…
LLNN is: Christian Bonnesen – guitar, vocals, Rasmus G. Sejersen – drums, Ketil G. Sejersen – synths, Rasmus Furbo – bass
“…avalanching bass rumbles and violent drums bash the groove into the ground with the force of King Kong punching the earth.” — Revolver
“…epic and crushing…” — No Clean Singing
“…an absolute skull cracker any way you slice it… In an era of great records coming out of the pandemic, Unmaker is among the best. Losing yourself in its layers and hateful majesty is a must for anyone who is a devotee of the underground looking for a deeper dive into this music.” — Two Guys Metal Reviews
“…like an artist painting a picture by spitting, shouting and clawing at the canvas followed up by throwing any paint he can lay his hands on with as much force as he can muster and then collapsing on the floor at a job well done… this is pummeling, intense, remorseless music but in a stroke of almost cosmic genius, it’s also at the same time, melodic, thoughtful and wonderous.” – Veil Of Sound
