The discography of Sunn O))), an American drone metal band, consists of ten studio albums, three collaborative albums, six EPs, four demos, one remix album, eight official live albums (plus one hundred and fifteen collected bootleg live recordings), one box set compilation, two stand-alone singles and three compilation contributions.
Founded by Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley, Sunn O))) is an experimental drone metal band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1998 originally under the name "Mars". The band signed with Hydra Head Records, founded by Isis frontman Aaron Turner, and released both The Grimmrobe Demos and its debut album ØØ Void. At the same time, Anderson founded his own label Southern Lord Records, which would become the band's primary outlet for most of their releases throughout their entire career. The band's first release through the label was Flight of the Behemoth (2002), which notably included two collaborations with Japanese noise artist Merzbow. They describe the sound and their approach to their first three major releases as worshiping the drone metal band Earth and sludge metal band Melvins, both from Sunn O)))'s home state of Washington. Sunn O)))'s next two albums, White1 (2003) and White2 (2004), were written and recorded at the same time and was said of the band to be an important turning point in the band's sound that allowed them to create the albums that would follow. They released the "claustrophobic" black metal album Black One (2005) and a collaboration with Japanese noise rock band Boris titled Altar (2006). Their interest in pushing the boundaries of metal music culminated in the orchestral Monoliths & Dimensions (2009), a critically acclaimed album that broke through the underground scene, landing on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.
While Anderson founded the Southern Lord label, in 2011 O'Malley founded his own label named Ideologic Organ, an imprint of the Viennese electronic/experimental label Editions Mego. Through Ideologic Organ, Sunn O))) began releasing odds-and-ends albums, including the demos Rehearsal Demo Nov 11 2011 and Downtown LA Rehearsal / Rifftape March 1998, and the single "青木ヶ原 // 樹海". In 2014, the band released two collaborative albums: Terrestrials with Norwegian experimental group Ulver and Soused with avant-garde musician Scott Walker, the latter of which became Sunn O)))'s most commercially successful album, landing at #88 on the Billboard 200, and was the final studio album by Walker before his death in 2019. The band's next album Kannon was born out of the Monoliths & Dimensions sessions and centers its theme around the female Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. In 2019, the band released Life Metal, featuring a comparatively more positive tone and mood, and Pyroclasts, a meditative experimental album produced by Steve Albini (Shellac, Big Black).
Sunn O)))'s discography features several limited-edition and tour-exclusive albums. The band has said these albums are a "win-win" solution that provide a reward to diehard fans and also help to fund expensive world tours. Most of the band's albums have been released in Japan through the local Daymare Recordings. In April 2013, Sunn O))) uploaded its entire discography to the music streaming platform Bandcamp. In June 2015, Sunn O))) launched a Live Archive of fan-submitted "unmixed, unmastered raw footage" of live performances through both their official website and Bandcamp. The archive launched with 67 recordings dating back to 2002.
Albums Studio albums Album Released Label Producer(s) Details ØØ Void June 26, 2000 Hydra Head Scott Reeder Noted at the time of release for having considerably higher production quality than the band's previous release, The Grimmrobe Demos. The 2008 Japanese version included a bonus disc titled The Iron Soul of Nothing, which is a remix of ØØ Void by Nurse with Wound. After going out of print, Southern Lord reissued the album in 2011 with updated artwork. Flight of the Behemoth January 22, 2002 Southern Lord Greg Anderson, Mathias Schneeberger The album is sometimes referred to as 3: Flight of the Behemoth. Sunn O))) collaborated with Japanese noise artist Merzbow for two of the album's tracks, while the closing song "F.W.T.B.T." is a drone interpretation of Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls". While the first two tracks resemble the band's classic doom metal formula, William York of AllMusic noted that on the other tracks, Sunn O))) "for the first time also [branches] out to create something new, something that goes beyond any sort of mere Earth worship." The Japanese and Bandcamp editions of the album include two additional live collaborations with Merzbow as bonus tracks. White1 April 22, 2003 Southern Lord Rex Ritter,Sunn O))) Before being known as White1 and White2, Sunn O))) wasn't sure how many albums their material would turn out to be and referred to these recordings simply as "The White Sessions". Written and recorded simultaneously but released a year apart, White1 and White2 sees Sunn O))) making a major stylistic departure from their earlier work. In an interview, Anderson said, "We decided to get out and get weird with it. I'm really glad that we did that and that we decided to make [those albums] because it opened the doors and set the table for us to really get to where we are now." Both albums prominently feature a synthesizer for the first time in the band's history, as well as include many guest collaborators. While previous albums included screaming, the band considers the spoken word poetry from Julian Cope on White1 to be the first real vocals on a Sunn O))) album. Both White1 and White2 were remastered by Matt Colton and reissued through Southern Lord in 2018 for the label's 20th Anniversary. White2 June 29, 2004 Southern Lord Rex Ritter,Sunn O))) Black One October 17, 2005 Southern Lord Sunn O))), Mathias Schneeberger The music of Black One has been described as "suffocating" and "claustrophobic", achieved in part from harsh noise musician John Wiese as guest and by recording vocals from inside a coffin inside a hearse. Black One is also tied to the genre of black metal in several ways: incorporating the genre into Sunn O)))'s signature drone sound, including a cover of Immortal's "Cursed Realms (Of the Winterdemons)", including guest vocals from Malefic (Xasthur) and Wrest (Leviathan), and paying homage to Bathory with the closing track "Báthory Erzsébet". Early editions were packaged with the live album Solstitium Fulminate, later available digitally. Monoliths & Dimensions May 18, 2009 Southern Lord Mell Dettmer, Randall Dunn Thom Jurek of AllMusic described Monoliths and Dimensions as a "wide-ranging adventure". Sunn O))) set out to make an album that opposed the "claustrophobic" feeling of their previous album Black One. Two years in the making, the orchestral album features dozens of collaborators from around the globe including Austriallian multi-instrumentalist Oren Ambarchi, composer Eyvind Kang and a Vietnamese women's choir. Critics drew comparisons to avant-garde music-theorist John Cage and minimalist composer Arvo Pärt. Monoliths and Dimensions was met with widespread critical acclaim upon release. Kannon December 4, 2015 Southern Lord Randall Dunn, Sunn O))) Following the ambitious Monoliths & Dimensions and high-profile experimental collaborations with Scott Walker (Soused) and Ulver (Terrestrials), Kannon was described as "a return to the elements" of the band's more straightforward early years. Sometimes represented as "观世音 Kannon", the title is the Japanese name for Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy in Buddhism who "hears the suffering of the universe and then transforms that energy into compassion and relief". The concept originated in 2006 during the Monoliths & Dimensions sessions and an early version of "Kannon 3" appears on their 2008 live album, Dømkirke. Early copies were packaged with a bonus flexi-disc single of the track "青木ヶ原 // 樹海". Life Metal April 26, 2019 Southern Lord Sunn O))) The title refers to an inside joke used to humorously comment on anything positive and opposing "doom and gloom" vibes. Sunn O))) picked the title because it reflected the album's more lively and beautiful music, and also represents the band members' more positive and upbeat outlook on life at the time of writing. Life Metal was recorded and edited entirely on analog tape with Steve Albini, who was said to have captured the band's live sound without use of Pro Tools. Instead of frequent guest-vocals collaborator Attila Csihar, the album features vocals from multi-instrumentalist Hildur Guðnadóttir to match Life Metal'''s softer tone. |- ! scope="row"| Pyroclasts| October 25, 2019 | Southern Lord | Sunn O))) | Written and recorded by Steve Albini at the same time as Life Metal, Pyroclasts is an experimental and improvisational album. Sunn O))) plus additional collaborators live recorded a new 12-minute improvized drone session at the start or end of each day during the recording of Life Metal. Pyroclasts is a collection of four of those tracks. The title refers to volcanic airborne pyroclastic rock. |- ! scope="row"| Sunn O)))'' April 3, 2026 Sub Pop Brad Wood, Sunn O)))
Collaborative albums Album Released Label Producer(s) Details Altar(with Boris) October 31, 2006 Southern Lord Sunn O))) Stephen O'Malley first met Atsuo of the Japanese noise rock band Boris in the mid-1990s and remained close ever since. Cam Lindsay of Exclaim! described the pairing of Sunn O))) and Boris for Altar as "a union that any doom metal fan has been praying for." In addition to members of Boris and Sunn O))), Altar also features Kim Thayil (Soundgarden), Joe Preston (Thrones), Phil Wandscher (Whiskeytown) and singer-songwriter Jesse Sykes, among others. Initial copies included the 28-minute bonus track "Her Lips Were Wet with Venom". Terrestrials(with Ulver) February 3, 2014 Southern Lord Stephen O'Malley, Kristoffer Rygg Sunn O))) previously collaborated with Norwegian experimental band Ulver on the song "Cut Wooded", released on WHITEbox and later editions of White1. The tracks on Terrestrials date back to three live improvisation sessions in Ulver's Crystal Canyon studio in 2008. They slowly worked on Terrestrials over five years in part because of the distance, but also because the project wasn't a main priority for either band. Daniel O'Sullivan compared the project to the film Koyaanisqatsi'''s opening scene, while O'Malley described the process as being "more raga than it was rock" that was "actually quite a blissed out, psychedelic session". |- ! scope="row"| Soused(with Scott Walker) | October 21, 2014 | 4AD | Scott Walker, Peter Walsh | Sunn O))) originally reached out to avant-garde artist Scott Walker to collaborate on Monoliths & Dimensions. Walker declined the offer, but later returned to the band in 2013 with material that was specifically designed for collaboration. Lars Gotrich of NPR described Soused as "deafeningly sublime" and "a dark and wild leap into the abyss that was also pretty ridiculous, using American bullwhips as percussion and plunging Walker's harrowing croon into unknown depths." Walker died in 2019, but not before explaining to The Guardian in 2018 that he rates all of his albums in his mind and felt Soused was "pretty perfect".
EPs