“Your God is a worm.”
If you’re acquainted with the modern weirdo metal landscape but somehow unfamiliar with Sumac, strap yourself in. The mastermind is Aaron Turner: ISIS, Hydra Head Records, Old Man Gloom, and a slew of smaller projects (with Jodis and Mammifer among my favourites). Also joining from the start was drummer Nick Yacyshyn –Sumac has been his biggest venture, but he’s also also played in Baptists and Ghengis Tron. In 2016 the line-up solidified with bass from Brian Cook (Botch, Russian Circles, and more). Sumac is much more than a side project: with a discography of five LPs, plus three with Keiji Haino, two live albums and two remix EPs (the second coming later this year), their output in ten years is almost as much as ISIS in their thirteen. Sumac‘s sound is uniquely heavy, technical, and spontaneous, and there’s no better record to demonstrate than than The Healer. Sumac always challenge themselves, so it’s needless to say the listener will be challenged too.
Opener “World of Light” can be digested in three movements. The intent of Sumac to be amorphous becomes immediately clear: swelling feedback, pick scraping, and drumkit-testing take over the first eleven minutes. If you were hoping Sumac has used The Healer as a chance to return to being a ‘normal’ band, it’s already clear that this isn’t the record for you. The first thing that could be called a riff lurches in at the twelve minute mark. This second movement carries an air of hopelessness with its doom-like panic chords. When Sumac “riff”, there’s always a layer of complexity that unfolds. Any measure might be extended or curtailed to fit the ideal twist or fill, as required by that exact moment’s purpose. The band might not even repeat that tweak when (or if) the segment comes round again. It’s like a mockery of the idea of “post” or even “math” metal, as all the wisdom residing in these songwriters is used to chart a truly new course. The haunting chords return for the close of the second movement, and the third begins for the final five minutes of “World of Light”. It becomes terrifyingly unpredictable as feedback whines over precise and complex bursts, all the way out to its closing moments.
As if by apology, “Yellow Dawn” rises with sweet organ textures (contributed by Faith Coloccia of Mammifer). Such a pleasant moment can only be corrupted, as a trademark Sumac riff reveals all their sinews: by way of chugs and shambles, the passage is slow, steady, and absolutely unpredictable. The track finishes with a wild solo underlined by dogmatically repeating basslines. “Yellow Dawn” has made for a fitting single for The Healer, not least because it’s the album’s shortest track at just under thirteen minutes. It’s similarly ‘short’ twin, “New Rites”, is front-loaded with extremely satisfying and focused heaviness. When the band coalesces into a groove after four tense minutes, the moment generated might just dethrone “Image Of Control (II)” as the band’s most immediately gratifying. The track gallops onwards into double kicks, tremolo picking, and noise walls, giving way to a mournful final two minutes. If you think Sumac are bereft of emotional impact, you must hear this song.
As “New Rites” ends in a really forlorn place, we are now appropriately sobered up for the album’s epic finale “The Stone’s Turn”. Turner starts proceedings by fumbling around with dead notes, as if trying to jump-start a motorboat with a plectrum. Cook joins in on the joke, but vocals enter to clarify that this is all deliberate. Turner’s gutturals and yowls are career-best by the time Yacyshyn joins, and the lyrics also conspire to produce one of Sumac’s hardest moments at the four minute mark. It’s at this point that “The Stone’s Turn” really blurs the line between improvisational and planned states, as they flip polarity between pulsating, hanging vocal passages and intense crescendos-as-verses. A necessary tempo drop at the ten minute mark leads to a Boris-style solo: Turner’s pointless distortion levels are ignored by Cook and Yacyshyn, and a gradual melodic progression begins. It’s our last moment of solace as The Healer closes through one more completely aimless freak-out session, and one more swaggering and determined Sumac beat-down riff.
We can only guess as to where Sumac draw and blur the line between composition and improvisation. On one listen you might imagine that large swathes of The Healer are the result of hot micing a soundcheck, but your next attempt, you’ll notice so many alignments between the three musicians, you’ll swear it was ordained in a Mayan calendar. Sonically, the record sounds like the latter, as all the tones are stunning and the performances so deliberate. One can namedrop the history of the performers to build legitimacy, but by now, Sumac are completely a force of their own, rewriting our understanding of spontaneity in heavy music, whilst crafting some of the most cutting riffs and grooves heard in this decade.
9/10
The Healer releases through Thrill Jockey and can be pre-ordered here.