Sumac
Love In Shadow

The Deal (2015): 6 tracks in 54 minutes;

What One Becomes (2016): 5 tracks in 59 minutes;

Love In Shadow (2018): 4 tracks in 66 minutes.

I have to start from these numbers to begin my delirious and very brief discourse on the third work by Sumac of Aaron Turner; the number of tracks produced decreases, while the duration of the individual songs increases immensely.

They remain a trio: a guitar, a bass, and a drum. And listening to their work will never be easy.

Never so close to Isis as on this occasion; particularly in the long instrumental passages where blind fury leaves room for eternal digressions. Dilated, open sounds, mantric repetitions with elegiac stride. Then falling back into chaotic, beastly sounds, with Aaron's voice offending through a furious growl. Hammering Post-Sludge adopting Industrial semblances, reminiscent of the early works of the seminal Scorn.

An image seen these days of incessant rains on TV fits well with Love in Shadow: the Adige spillway discharging into the quiet and crystalline waters of Lake Garda, to prevent flooding in the city of Verona, 350 cubic meters per second of muddy and icy sludge. In the same way, Sumac manage to unite tremendous passages of suffocating malevolence with mystical moments of adamantine beauty.

Emerging once again as victors...THE TASK...

Ad Maiora.