Sumac – The Deal

Sumac – The Deal

Excuse the pun sounding association right away, but the best way to describe Sumac is through poisoning. When thinking post-metal, there is but one name that serves as a marker of quality: Aaron Turner. Like me, many miss Isis, but I can only admire the bands decision to turn a new leaf and let the project rest before becoming generic in its own way. Following the projects of the members involved, there is no doubt that there is still creativity left and every venture so far delivered.

Still, Turner holds a somewhat special place, not only as a creative leader of the band, but also as the head of now – more or less – defunct Hydra Head Records. When Sumac was announced, high hopes began to form. And boy, does Turner show that he´s still as hart hitting as ever. So back to the poisoning aspect of The Deal: Poisoning understood as the intake of a foreign substance and the rapid, slow, conscious or unconscious collapse of the bodily functions or the whole cardiovascular system, The Deal is the hallucination inducing, menacing slow and always conscious demise of your very being.

It starts tingling, almost mocking; saying "fuck you, idiot! I´m here and you´ll suffer" through the creeping echoing guitar strums in "Spectral Gold". Traces of harm being detected and the promise of things going downhill from here. The first cadences of piano in "Thorn In The Lion´s Paw" followed by some riffs show Sumac crowding your organs before the superb drumming by Nick Yacyshyn of Baptists takes the tension from your muscles and lets you sink to your feet. Turner’s vocals are better than ever, never going too into Isis´ religious hum and remaining crushingly heavy and resonant. The middle part of this tracks has the instruments going into a complete frenzy: Turner wants Yacyshyn to play hide and seek with him and as the guitars tease and drums follow, everything comes crashing down in the quarter of a second. This fierce collapse is the fight for breath as your lungs give out and as the sounds lead out with the same ambiance they introduced themselves to your system, exhaustion has you sinking into coma.... 

...Only to awaken from the painful guitar lead and distant growl of "Hollow King". Here Turner´s vocals become harsher and especially the pick up after the grand middle section of Yacyshyn playing a virtuous drum solo, has the band going full trash metal and abandoning all ambiance one might be used from a post-/doom metal outfit. It is large, abrasive and the eerie – nails on a blackboard – diminutive, with sharp drum crashes proofs that Sumac are not about the same song structure and crescendo choke hold one might expect from many outfits of this field.

Following "Blight Ends Angel" is the exhalation of blood loss and life-will. As in the opening track, but in a more cohesive way, the guitar plays a heavy airy progression for two and a half minutes until the destruction progresses once again. Relaxation followed by spasms. Dissimilar to the former tracks, this composition seems restrained and even more concerned with the technicalities of interplay. While there are switches in pace, the bursts and blasts from Turner rely on heaviness over speed. But Yacyshyn has his glowing moment here and this you could have a deep listening experience from the drum track alone. As these might be the first signs of cardiac arrest, "The Deal" closes off with the mind going. If these would have been the stages of grief, this track would be bargaining: Turner, for the first time becomes reminiscent of Isis´ songwriting and throws in psychedelic elements. First, a few metallic scratchings disrupted by trashing sections and later a hauntingly cold and yet somewhat uplifting line played in different variations and becoming more abrasive every time. For the last time in this long struggle, everything comes down in huge built up, going from fast to faster tribalistic drumming, vaguely reminiscent of a better Slipknot and Turner slowly diminishing his playing until only warped flecks of consciousness ring out in a glisten. You have arrived, you are finished – and tellingly closer "The Radiance Of Being" comes across as a reverb soaked obituary, growing more desperate with time and reminding us, that this occurrence was not natural but genius inflicted upon air. 

After this, I can once again only stress the great interplay – you could be tempted to say magic – that this band shares. Turner’s songwriting is as tight as ever and with Yacyshyn as a drummer, he couldn´t have made a better choice. Lyric-wise there is nothing left to be desired either: From "Your Rule Is Null / You Have Been Crowned / Hollow King" on "Hollow King" to "Begin Rites Of Reclamation / Flames Engulf The Initiate / Kneel / Kneel Before The Raging Blaze" on "The Deal", bleak poetry is what you get and the meaning of all this remains as elusive as you´ve come to expect from Turner. At times when I feel that there is not much to be born in respect to doom metal, I now know where to turn to – hopefully for a few more releases to come.

8/10