Sumac - May You Be Held Review

Well, here we are, full circle. Our first review at this address was Sumac's previous release, their 2018 junior masterpiece Love In Shadow. Veterans among the readership may know that we labeled that as our fourth best album of that year, a distinction we still stand by to this day. So after another Keiji Haino collaboration, as well as an ongoing global pandemic and struggle for equality, one of the bands we know like the back of our hands has returned with another solo full-length. The last album in which I stayed up to midnight exclusively was with Haken's Virus, so it's been a while since I've had this sort of eager anticipation for a release. And while "The Iron Chair" serves phenomenally as a single, I always appreciate longer-form music within the context of its whole. Needless to say, May You Be Held has been on my radar since the moment it was announced. It could be cliche to say that I had high hopes for this release, especially due to all of the deserved praise given to its predecessors, but I will say it anyway: May You Be Held had massive shoes to fill. As a fan, I had no reservations that Turner, Cook, and Yacyshyn would deliver. And deliver they did. 

I'm going to remain as objective and transparent as I can throughout this review, as I believe I need to highlight both sides of how I feel about this record. To begin with subjectivity, this may be one of my favorite albums of the year, hands down. Like on Love In Shadow, here Sumac displays astounding maturity in their ability to balance composition and improvisation in a long-form setting that is unrivaled by any group I can think of. Dynamic as they come, the songs hit as hard as a cannon, exploding with primal ferocity and aggression, only to reel back and load up another round to be punched out later. The "atmospheric" tag often credited to the band is on full display here, like passages in the title track and "Consumed," where solid chunks of the pieces are filled with hypnotic and piercing drone. These are complemented by vicious tom and cymbal fills from Yacyshyn, while Turner wails with a quality that can only be described as anxiety-inducing. Nevermore has the band sounded truly in their own musical realm than on this record.

But to contrast, this may be one of Sumac's weaker releases. The keyword in the last sentence is 'may,' but I do have a few causes of concern when it comes to May You Be Held. These begin with the opener, "A Prayer For Your Path," which, personally, does a whole lot of nothing for the record overall. What encompasses the five and a half minute runtime is a guitar feedback duet which, while actually working in the context of what it is attempting to accomplish, simply serves as an eerie elevator to the distorted and vile hell that the rest of the album encapsulates. It feels extremely out of place and does not even lead into the twenty-minute title track which follows, and it probably should've been cut from the project if we could go back. My harsh criticism for "A Prayer For Your Path" may come with just wanting to get to the meat of what the band has to offer, and, fortunately, from here on out things sail very smoothly in terms of consistency between the next four songs. My second and final critique lies with the first single, "The Iron Chair," and the closer "Laughter and Silence," which, to open with, are both stellar tracks in their own right, but lack the long-form experimentation that drives "May You Be Held" and "Consumed." Maybe I became spoiled with Love In Shadow's four tracks of monolithic experimental sludge, but with Sumac I expected nothing less at this point. If the tracks were both doubled in length, the work could have been given more room to breathe, and while the pacing of this record may have improved from their 2018 effort, some awesome content may have been lost. 

Nitpicking on song lengths aside, Sumac has done it again. Aside from the opener, the three-piece once more has created an immensely impressive work that cannot be put amongst their contemporaries. May You Be Held, like Love In Shadow and, in my opinion, What One Becomes before it, is on another musical level of complexity, absurdity, and engagement. It is astonishing what the summation of influences of noise, sludge, mathcore, and post-metal can behold, and that is no more true than here. Lovers of the group's previous efforts should revel in the despondent soundscapes and unnerving guitar leads, it is all here. And will this one show up on the PMMetalGuide 'Best Of' list? I would count on it. 

(Also P.S. Aaron Turner, the art direction for the last two albums is amazing! Keep the abstract art going!)

Final Rating: "Intoxicated by the vapors as the core to ash is turned."

Favorite Tracks: "May You Be Held," "Consumed," "The Iron Chair," "Laughter and Silence"

FFO: Old Man Gloom, Isis, Kaiji Haino