Band:	Sumac
Album:	The Healer
Style:	Post-metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	June 21, 2024
A review by:	RaduP

01. World Of Light
02. Yellow Dawn
03. New Rites
04. The Stone's Turn

Sumac push even further into what makes them Sumac. For better or worse.

A lot of pressure lied on the back of Sumac simply because they were a post-metal band that happened to have one of the main members of the most beloved and most missed band in post-metal, Isis' Aaron Turner. Let alone the fact that it had a bit of a supergroup vibe with Aaron being joined by Brian Cook of Russian Circles and Nick Yacyshyn of Baptists, and the fact that Aaron was also engaging in a similarly heavy and esoteric post-metal sludge of Old Man Gloom, there's a lot that still lives in the shadow of the fact that Isis is no more. In a way it makes sense why both Sumac and Old Man Gloom have taken their sounds into a different direction to escape the shadow of Isis, but at least out of the two, Old Man Gloom still maintain more of a structured approach. The same can't be said for Sumac.

Though there was still a semblance of structure in The Deal and What One Becomes, erratic as they still were, it was Sumac's collaborations with free improvisation extraordinaire Keiji Haino that acted as a catalyst for the band venturing forth into the formless improvisational and noise heavy experimentation that would follow. As our writer musclassia proved in their review of May You Be Held and in our collaborative retrospective of Aaron Turner's career, that approach really isn't for everyone. Long song with very long moments lacking structures is not the most approachable way to present your music, and The Healer, being the longest of all Sumac albums, doubles down on that approach.

There are two ways to take in Sumac's music. Either one vibes with the entire formless approach, or they see the more improvisational moments as obstacles to wait through until reaching the moments where some structure does exist, moments that do justify still calling Sumac a sludge/post metal band. I'm personally in between the two. You might've noticed that in the article I linked I was the one covering a lot of Turner's more ambient/experimental side projects, but also that I didn't always give them the best rating. It's just an approach and one can still not pull it off. And as far as The Healer goes, I think they pull the "boring" moments better this time around.

Even with it being the longest of the Sumac albums, The Healer felt less patience testing, and the more structured metal moments felt more rewarding. The album kinda drifts in and out of the two, creating a sort of listening experience that one should get lost in but one that can't really be considered background listening, yet it's still as challenging as Sumac tend to be. There are plenty of moments that did feel quite unique, from "World Of Light"'s more experimental growls + wild improvised percussion eventually leading to another highlight much later when the track becomes a funeral doom one and then picking up pace towards a sludge that's more punky. Then there's "Yellow Dawn"'s chugging riffs sometimes having a bit of a post-hardcore edge, "New Rites"' groove around the middle of the track, "The Stone's Turn"'s psychedelic denseness when switching paces. In another world, these would be moments in a more lean and focused 40-minutes long sludge album, but The Healer draws them on alongside their prolonged experimental approach, for better or worse.