Track Listing

1. Torn By Wolves
2. Bless Your Blood
3. Black Wall
4. Desert Is A Circle
5. Attar
6. Wolve's Pup
7. River Of Transfiguration

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24542 in Music
• Released on: 2006-06-05
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

The Sun Awakens
It took me ages to get into Ben Chasny's Six Organs of Admittance. I kind of disregarded School of the Flower as being a wimpy, floaty acoustic album and not really worth listening to. That is until I really listened to it. Like all great albums, it's takes a while to sink in; for the melodies, hooks and images to appear.
Once they do appear you realize that The Sun Awakens, like School of the Flower is definitely a wimpy, floaty acoustic album, but it's so much more as well. There's a kind of spitrituality about every Six Organs track, an aura or vibe about it that evokes imagery of the sun throwing it's rays over the apex of a mountain (or is that just the cover art?). It's apt, is all I can say.
The Sun Awakens is another stone in the Six Organs journey. Dark Noontide was very droney and quite dark comparitively. School of the Flower was very spiritual and quite shy and gentle in it's approach. The Sun Awakens is the sound of Six Organs degree after leaving School of the Flower. It's a lot bolder; the vocals are way further up in the mix; there's a lot more percussion and some tracks are less floaty and more immediate. You can see the Comets On Fire side of Ben Chasny creeping into Six Organs as well. The track are more layered, bolder like Comets and feature some pretty cool electric guitar drone chords behind the acoustics.
If you get into it it's avery absorbing album and ultimately satisfying to listen to, just like all the other Six Organs albums I've heard.
The track worth mentioning outright is the epic noise piece `River of Transfiguration' which traverses ambient textures throughout it's 24min running time. It's a lot spookier than the rest of the album and in that respect, doesn't fit right in with the other tracks, especially as there's no hint of an acoustic guitar in there. It's mostly tape drone, effects and electric guitar with a section of scattered drumming and chant-like vocals. It's definitely something to get absorbed in. It's way better than that awful title track from School of the Flower anyway.
The Sun Awakens is a good album but I'm not sure it beats School of the Flower, we'll have to see. Definitely worth a purchase by all types of music lover.

An exceptionally good album
I bought this on the strength of a (short) review in the national press having not heard any of Ben Chasny's previous work. Where do I start! This an exceptionally good album musically. Chasny's guitar on the first half of the album is superb throughout. Whilst there are obvious eastern influences in the music, the first half of the album is very individual and original in style ranging from the dark melancholia of the opening "Torn by Wolves" and the final track of the first half "Wolves Pup" to the upbeat drum-laden "Attar". Must admit that "The Desert is a Circle" made me think I was listening to the soundtrack of a spaghetti western but it is well-played and if this was the intention it certainly brought the desert to mind! The second half of the album consists entirely of the 24 minute long epic that is "River of Transfiguration". Whilst this is excellent (though a little repetitive), it just doesn't seem to marry with the first half of the album. That's the only downside to this work. Nothing wrong with either half of the album, nothing at all - in fact they are both very, very good. It just doesn't seem to hang together. That's why this is a 4 star album and not a 5 star album. Very good though.

A work of austere beauty
Despite the incredible prolificacy that has seen the release of seven albums since the turn of the millennium, the advent of a new Six Organs Of Admittance record remains an event to cherish.

Having finally achieved mainstream recognition with his last album, 2005's sublime School Of The Flower, Ben Chasny - who ostensibly is Six Organs Of Admittance - has decided to push away from the psych-folk blueprint that he conquered with the last Six Organs album and propel himself into the depths of bohemia with a masterclass in dark artistry.

Working with some of his long-time collaborators (notably Noel Von Harmonson of Comets On Fire and Tim Green of The Fucking Champs) means that some of the hallmarks from earlier releases remain, so fans will recognise For Octavio Paz's melancholic six-strings on Torn By Wolves and fragments of Compathia's sweet lullabies can be found on The Desert Is A Circle. But this is an undeniably darker experience than its predecessor; while some of the gentle percussion and the occasional cymbal crash remain, there's little that isn't immolated by the disruptive fire of Chasny's electric guitar. Chasny even goes so far as to mangle his own words on Black Wall, before a volley of feedback blows his falsetto away entirely.

At the end of The Sun Awakens lies the twenty-four minute River Of Transformation, a desolate, droning whirlpool and the most oppressive track that Chasny has recorded to date, whether under his Six Organs guise or any other. The fearsome, crunching guitar is heavy enough to recall some of Chasny's psych outings with Comets On Fire, but the weird other-worldly chanting hauls the track back into the avant-garde mire.

Dark, taxing and almost overwhelming complex The Sun Awakens may be, but it's an album laced with enough of Chasny's particular brand of mercurial grace to ensure that Six Organs Of Admittance's second album for Drag City is, nonetheless, a work of austere beauty.