Into This Juvenile Apocalypse our Golden Blood to Pour Let Us Never

Atmospheric sludge metal trio Sumacs first two collaborations with guitar destructionist Keiji Haino were recorded during a series of 2017 sessions, respectively in studio and in concert. These experiences inspired Sumac to push themselves further and create more spontaneous, dynamic music on their own. Bearing a typically long, poetic Haino-esque title, Into This Juvenile Apocalypse our Golden Blood to Pour Let Us Never was recorded in May of 2019 at the Astoria Hotel in Vancouver, when Haino was briefly touring North America. Like their previous sessions and gigs together, this one was entirely improvised, with no directions planned before the musicians hit the stage. The second one was a bit more spacious and nuanced than the all-out brutal assault of the scorching 2018-issued studio effort, and Into This Juvenile Apocalypse similarly has lots of breathing room. The 12-minute opening track feels dazed and disoriented, with certain elements flaring up instead of everything turning up to full blast all at once. Unlike the previous two collaborations, Aaron Turners monstrous growl makes appearances, particularly on "A shredded coiled cable within this cable sincerity could not be contained," one of the albums most agitated, cataclysmic pieces. The instrumental title cut has swarms of ear-bleeding guitar feedback and a winding rhythm that approaches a shoegaze sway at some points, but also flails off into free-form chaos. A more drone-based section, featuring Hainos yelled proclamations about beauty and being the discovered rather than the discoverer, leads into the albums shortest and most immediate tracks, including a blaze-of-glory finale filled with crunching doom riffs and evil elephant roars. The entire recording has a more controlled sense of tension and release than the artists previous collaborations, and both its sprawling valleys and electrifying peaks are equally mesmerizing. ~ Paul Simpson