SUMAC / May You Be Held – CD

Description

• CD Cardboard Sleeve

Track Listing:

1. A Prayer for Your Path
2. May You Be Held
3. The Iron Chair
4. Consumed
5. Laughter and Silence

As an artist in this time of significant upheaval, society seemingly having reached the end of its current iteration, its of critical importance to absorb and interpret this process of dissolution – and of the transformation that hopefully follows it saysAaron Turner, guitarist and vocalist for the expressionistic metal ensembleSUMAC. While I dont believe were on the brink of collective destruction precisely now, this is clearly a pivotal stage in the story of humankind – and there is something that feels right about this music at this exact and very uncertain moment. In this case, the music in discussion isMay You Be Held, the latest album for the American-Canadian trio. Picking up where the band left off with 2018sLove in Shadow, SUMAC push further into the extreme polarity of their sound with their latest collection of long-form composition and free-form exploration. Meticulously detailed and complex one moment, rudimentary and repetitive the next, and completely untethered and unscripted at seemingly random intervalsits an album that fluctuates between extreme discipline and control on one end and an almost feral energy on the other.

SUMACs work has always been about transition between different states of being. Our sense of normal, and indeed our sense of life, is now being shaken. We dont know what is coming next. We are looking for pointers towards the future, as well as things to hold onto in the moment. This is a fundamental aspect ofMay You Be Heldslarger theme. Musically, its about continual unification and divergenceand is imbued with the uncertainty inherent in that cycle. In that uncertainty there is also hope, frustration, madness, and a desire for connection. All this too is part of this moment in our historyeverything happening at once, the simultaneous emergence of humanity’s best and worst characteristics. Lyrically,May You Be Heldfollows the humanistic themes explored onLove in Shadow, partially informed by Turners navigation of fatherhood and family life. Its clear humans have figured out many ways over the centuries to acclimate to adverse circumstances, and even to thrive in them, Turner says. My hope for our family, humanity and future generations, is that we find our way by doing what we have always doneinvent, adapt, band together, and ideally, hold each other up through love and kindness.

This compassionate tone stands in stark contrast to the misanthropic and death-obsessed nature of most heavy metal music, and perhaps even seems diametric to the caustic and aggravated tone ofMay You Be Held. It may make more sense to approach the album as if it were a free jazz record or an abstract noise piece, where the emotional resonance isnt bound up in melody as much as it is in performance. Here, Turners bellows and howls seem less threatening than wounded, primal, and mammalian. On guitar, his subversion of melody and penchant for noise seems less like aural punishment and more like an open horizon for frequencies and timbre. In a traditional metal context, drummerNick Yacyshynsdexterous beats, exhilarating fills, and creative flourishes might seem like the pinnacle of rhythmic ferocity, but onMay You Be Heldtheres a kind of ecstasy in his performance, a fluidity and ability that conveys both urgency in purpose and joy in execution. BassistBrian Cookglues it together with a heavy handedness that could be seen as hostile or malicious if it didnt also provide the clearest path to navigating the bands thorny arrangements.

May You Be Heldopens with A Prayer for Your Path, a composition culled from improvisational exercises centered on the interplay between Turners guitar drones and Yacyshyns bowing of a vibraphone. Threaded together with warming bass swells, it serves as the entry point for the albums increasingly tumultuous and unpredictable strategies. The albums title track is more in line with SUMACs established tactics: fusing heavy riffage, knotty structures, and expressionistic forays into an epic narrative arc that winds and weaves through so many peaks and valleys that it spills across two sides of an LP. The bands free moments hit their apex with The Iron Chair, a fully unscripted spontaneous moment in the studio that sounds both completely uninhibited while also locking into some kind of alien logic. From there SUMAC launches into their second long-form orchestrated compositionthe imposing Consumed. The track is perhaps their most ambitious work yet, morphing and evolving across multiple recording sessions at different locations over the course of several years until reaching its final form where SUMACs troglodyte force slowly ramps it up over its twenty-minute run time to a near panic-inducing frenzy. The album is bookended with a final improvisation exercise, the somber and subdued Laughter and Silence.

While past SUMAC records have been concentrated efforts churned out in short flurries of activity,May You Be Heldis a record that came from seemingly out of nowhere. Pieced together from vestiges of theLove in Shadowsession withKurt BallouatRobert Lang Studioin Shoreline WA, a session atThe Unknownrecording studio in Anacortes withMatt Baylesat the engineering helm (where the bands sophomore albumWhat One Becomeswas tracked), and supplementary work atHouse of Low Cultureout on Vashon Island in the Puget Sound,May You Be Heldreflects the temporal shifts and protracted scope of its genesis. Its a record that feels more human than anything elseat times flawed and wounded, at others, triumphant, purposeful, and pensive. The music is by no means a salve or anodyne, but neither is it nihilistic. Rather, its forceful approach and challenging timbres are like a confrontation, a baptism by fire, a therapeutic razing. Ultimately,May You Be Heldis a reminder of the life force that binds us together and a clarion call to be an active participant in an evolving world.