“I don’t think any song had less than 130 tracks of guitar”: Sunn O)))’s new album might set a record for guitar layers

Sunn O))) are nothing if not sonic maximalists. They make no secret of it. The clue is on the back of their LPs, the words “Maximum volume yields maximum results” both an instruction to their audience and a credo, words for its electric guitar masterminds Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson to live by.

And live by it they do. On their eponymous new album, their debut for legendary Seattle label Sub Pop, the dynamic duo might just have broken the record for layering guitar parts.

It might be quite hard to prove (who exactly is keeping score here, maintaining a logbook of guitar tracks?) but in a recent interview with the New York Times, producer Brad Wood (who come to think of it, would be keeping score, if only to help shepherd this thing successfully onto the tape as he co-produced and mixed it with the band) tried to put a figure on it.

“I don’t think any song had less than 130 tracks of guitar,” says Wood.

That’s right, 130 tracks of guitar. One, Three, Zero. This puts Bob Rock’s multi-tracked über-production jobs on Mötley Crüe’s Dr. Feelgood and Metallica’s own eponymous album, aka the Black Album, into perspective. But Wood’s figure might even be a conservative estimate.

“I can’t remember what the record was that we ended up getting to,” says Anderson, “but we’re talking, like, I don’t know, 180 tracks of guitar…”

“Of just guitar!” O’Malley reminds us.

sunn O))) - Glory Black (Official Audio) - YouTube

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If you are a long-time fan, this should come as no surprise. The 2026 incarnation of Sunn O))), in which it’s just O’Malley and Anderson, and their guitars, amps, and fuzz pedals, gives them more room to go over the top with guitar, to choke the stereo spread with the gnarly vibrations of guitar speakers pushed to their limit, power chords as seismic phenomena, aural therapeutics.

On this, their 10th studio album, their first since 2019, Sunn O))) have found a new lease of life.

“What’s been happening with our performances over the last couple years with the two of us and no other collaborators has been really fresh and exciting,” says Anderson, in a statement accompanying the album’s unveiling.

Sunn O))) was recorded a year ago now. O’Malley and Anderson spending the first weeks of 2025 in Woodinville, Washington, enjoying the seclusion of Bear Creek Studios, secreted out in the arboreal vistas of the Pacific Northwest, with 10 acres of land to explore.

“The vast tracking room had big windows looking out on trees,” adds O’Malley. “We could go hiking and be out in the woods, spend time outdoors. That became a big part of it.”

The New York Times interview pulls back the curtain on some of the recording techniques used to capture these guitar tones. Both Anderson and O’Malley favor a stack of tube amps, three cabinets each, and every speaker on every cabinet was miked up.

sunn O))) - Raise the Chalice (Official Audio) - YouTube

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A direct feed was also taken so that they could reamp later. There were room microphones, too.

Wood had one mic in a room with a grand piano, so that it would pick up the thrum of the piano strings and the guitar – Blood Incantation did something similar when tracking Absolute Elsewhere with producer Arthur Rizk at Hansa Studios, in Berlin, when they miked up an old piano with a $20,000 Neumann U-57 from the ‘50s to capture this all-but-imperceptible drone throughout the album.

It makes sense. What is extreme metal if not a war on silence? This time, one of drone’s chief architects – the sick minds who brought us the EarthQuaker Devices Life Pedal – have taken that war nuclear. One hundred and thirty tracks, indeed…

Sunn O))) is available to pre-order via Sub Pop and is released on April 3.