Album Review: Sunnata, Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth
Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth is the fourth full-length from Warsaw-based post-heavy rockers Sunnata. Comprised of six songs, it runs a substantial-but-manageable 49 minutes and culls influences from a broad range of spheres, perhaps none more so than its own. The band began its journey circa 2008 under a different, less-prone-to-sonic-enlightenment moniker, and has gradually been engaging self-realization since, more effectively so each time out. Between their 2014 debut, Climbing the Colossus, 2016’s Zorya (review here), and 2018’s crucial Outlands (review here), they have marched a path forward of exciting sonic progression and individuality, finding a space where the crush of Neurosis, the melodic downerism of Alice in Chains and the tantric repetitions of Om can coexist in flowing, coherent form. Their material has never been so complex or so well composed as it is on Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth, and the songs come across as a multifaceted intellectual experience. It’s an album, to be sure, but it also feels in listening like the start of a conversation.
The stated purpose on the part of the band was to examine “different angles on the theme of religious fanaticism… [the] general sense of trusting your life to a crystal ethereal being represented by humans of flesh, bones and sins, and discusses consequences of doing so,” and fair enough. Their native Poland has, like many nations including my own, witnessed a swing to far-right populism and conservative demagoguery, and that’s before one actually takes the idea literally as a theme based on religious dogma. Any angle of approach, then, there’s plenty subject matter for Sunnata to work with, and in cuts like “A Million Lives,” “Black Serpent” and the closing “Way Out” — American listeners should be aware that this is the equivalent in British English to “exit” — they translate ideological depiction into deep-mix heavy immersion. They are writing about rituals and a ritual mindset, and the songs themselves feel ritualistic, from the beginning in “Crows” as the lyrics set listeners before a field of dead bodies, the first but not last reference to Rome falling made.
“Crows” is the shortest track on Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth at 5:57, and something of a stage-setting through its linear build, but effective in drawing the listener into the midst. Brooding voices and tense rhythms find guitarist/vocalists Szymon Ewertowski and Adrian Gadomski, bassist Michal Dobrzanski and drummer Robert Ruszczyk moving toward the solo-topped payoff that arrives in the second half of the song, a cascading turn that leads to a final chorus with both singers telling the audience something else it needs to know about the record that follows, which is that while Sunnata are working on a theme and the lyrics and mindset of the composition is geared toward that, they are not forsaking songcraft for the sake of narrative. I don’t know that this is the case, but I would not be surprised if the instrumental foundation of the record was set before the lyrics came together — each song has its own structure and is built toward the overarching flow, the assemblage front-to-back just happens to work exceptionally well enough to be tied together through the fanaticism theme.
As the shortest song, “Crows” is followed immediately by the longest, “God Emperor of Dune,” at 8:47, which is the basis of any Om comparison one might want to make, though here too the vocals distinguish Sunnata through call and response chants over soft toms, cymbals and tambourine, gradually moving toward a proggy rush and wash alike that swirls like the fog over a follower’s eyes. That is ably drawn back to a comparatively minimal and droning finish, but the patience and clear intent with which “God Emperor of Dune” is executed pushes the atmosphere laid out by the opener deeper, such that the push of the subsequent “A Million Lives” is like the constant barrage of living in a post-truth world. One never completely has footing in a world with no ground. The difference with Sunnata‘s portrayal, however, is that the songs themselves are structured and their movement tells this push-pull in shifts of tempo, rhythm and melody. For all the scope and purpose, again, they are songwriters. “A Million Lives” is catchy as all hell.
It would be the landmark hook of Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth were it not for the side B opener “Black Serpent,” with its more aggressive crux and gang-shout call and response chorus. In the back and forth pairings of shorter songs with longer ones, “A Million Lives” and “Black Serpent” are the centerpieces, but they do not give ground atmospherically, and the mood of the album is maintained, even if perhaps taken to a more severe place. “Black Serpent” seems to crash to its finish, a winding line of effects echoing out when the vocals recede, but “Völva (The Seeress)” — and while we’re here, let’s note that “serpent” and “völva” (which in Germanic mythology is a woman shaman) seem purposefully paired to subtly nod to male and female genitalia; sex is a big part of any dogma — arrives and sets itself to willfully repetitive invocations of its titular mystic, blurring the line that felt so stark only a few songs ago between “God Emperor of Dune” and “Crows” or “A Million Lives” on either side of it. Growing blurry is the intent, of course.
The title line of “Way Out” arrives as, yes, a way out of this fog, and it brings the album’s title line with it for further clarity, giving an encapsulation over its first two and a half minutes before dropping back to near-silence and rebuilding. This time, when it goes, it doesn’t come back. They end ethereal in vocals, but grounded in groove, and the feeling is very much that of an arrival from just before the five-minute mark when everything but the bass drops out to the rest of the song’s total 8:37. It’s closure, not epilogue, and duly exciting, underscoring the layered purposes to which Sunnata have set themselves on this fourth long-player. It is the work of a mature band — we’ve come a long way since Satellite Beaver — who refuse to stop growing, and whose refining of processes seems based not so much on retreading what they’ve done before, but deriving new modes of expression as they continue to explore who they are as a group. There are bands who base entire careers off less depth than any single track offers on Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth, and whatever else Sunnata do throughout, they make the entire project feel like the beginning of a conversation waiting to be had.
For serious: Dig the band, and their sounds.
For giggles: Aesthetically, never mind the rolled (third) eye shot timing; I’m struck by the juxtaposition of such a meditative/centered sounding band having a soul patch that’s clearly slightly off to our right/his left. Really fucked my shit up this morning.
Also, I may need more sleep/coffee when I mix up right/left distinctions.
Heart emoji.