Sumac - Love in Shadow

Coming hot off their collaborative album with Keiji Haino earlier this year (the quality of which took me by surprise after hearing so many half-assed collabs between other bands), Sumac continue their expressive sludge metal experimentation with their third full-length album, Love in Shadow. Following up their sophomore effort, What One Becomes, from 2016 (the album that got me into Sumac), Love in Shadow doesn’t really divert too far away from the band’s simple appeal of super heavy marches through the valley of the shadow of doom. However, the simplicity of the appeal of the band’s work says nothing about the quality of the material on Love in Shadow. Comprised of only four (very lengthy) songs, Love in Shadow doesn’t simply rely on its thick, immersive production to carry them clumsily through a haze of heavy guitars and crunchy bass. No, Sumac bring grooves and they bring riffs with them to this album, and it keeps the 66-minute affair a captivating one, and one that even tops What One Becomes.

Love in Shadow puts it’s biggest and most experimental foot forward with the 21-minute opener, “The Task”, which makes tremendous use of its runtime with a number of interesting movements. Starting off with the band’s familiar burst of growls and maxed out amplifiers, the song transitions to a more subdued, but no less unsettling clean guitar section that builds into an intriguing low guitar riff backed by a slow drum beat and subtly menacing growls that maintain the sense of unease the song started with. Eventually a slow, crunchy, eerie bass groove that reminds me of a slower version of Slipknot’s “Iowa” takes over and the guitars serve as ambient accents while freakish howls of horror provide the jolt the song needs to maintain its ominous mood. The minimalistic last section of the song finds singer Aaron Turner growling over what sounds like a synthesized and slightly distorted organ, ending the song on a more sorrowful but accepting note.

After the series of false endings on the opening track, Sumac finally moves on to the record’s second cut: “Attis’ Blade”, which jumps in with a jangly down-tuned guitar riff quickly joined by the bass and drums as the guitar riff mutates into these odd dissonant atmospherics. It’s the most brooding intro on the album, and the song generally keeps its heaviness going to the very end with a few odd twists along the way.

The album then moves to its third and shortest song: the twelve-minute “Arcing Silver”. Brian Cook starts the song off with a thick, rumbly bass groove that carries the rest of the song through spooky guitar ambiance and eventual palm-muted chugging amid harrowing growls. The songs later hits its more subdued intervals, but only to come back harder and more dissonant, with a few measures of blast beats even being used to usher the song out.

Sumac rounds the album off with “The Ecstasy of Unbecoming”. With probably the calmest, shoegaziest intro on the album, the song moves into a time of amplifier worship that harkens to Sunn O))). The song makes its way through the hazy drone and finally gets into gear with a crunchy palm-muted riff, well accented by a tom-heavy drum beat. Indeed, the drums finally seem to take on a more driving role on this song and I like it, ending the album on a more performatively expressive manner that feels like a fitting conclusion.

Sumac definitely don’t settle for the bare minimum on this album and their effort and genuine dedication to making Love in Shadow as interesting as possible shows. It seems like maybe the effects of working with someone as experimental as Keiji Haino had some lasting effects on the band, especially on the strange arc that covers the opening track. But even through the more drawn-out sections of their songs, Sumac maintain their hold on the tone they set from the start by continuously introducing new ideas, not shying away from altering a song’s trajectory or adding unusual musical elements, however odd they may be, but all in a manner complimentary to the album. As well as they are mixed and well-tempered, I wish that there were a few more moments for the drumming to shine than there are. I get that this album isnt about flash, but Cook and Turner each get plenty of time to explore the soundscapes the album carves with their respective instruments, and Nick Yacyshyn definitely brought a lot to the album with what he did already and I just think he deserved to have more presence on the album. Nevertheless, Love in Shadow is perhaps the biggest win for Sumac so far, and one that shows them integrating a little of the experimental quirk they perhaps gleaned from their collaborative triumph with Keiji Haino earlier in the year.