In the five years since disbanding the seminal post-metal act Isis, Aaron Turner has broadened the scope of his work, offering a variety of sounds in numerous projects that range from the sludge punk weirdness of Old Man Gloom to the more pensive ambience of Mamiffer. Amid this kind of experimentation, his tendency to manipulate the spaces his music inhabits has remained a given, and for all that the multi-instrumentalist has produced in the world of heavy music, his most profound contribution has been an innate sense of the balance between elegance and ugliness. While The Deal isn’t a reinvention of that formula, the debut from his latest project, Sumac, offers a new perspective, one that finds Turner at his most sonically aggressive in years.
The Deal capitalizes on an energy of unease, building from moments of fractured disquiet into a tumult of guitar tones and the disjointed rhythmic patterns of drummer Nick Yacyshyn (of Baptists). It’s not unfamiliar territory for Turner: much of what provided Isis with its distinctive sound came from the same move from dissonant ambience into volatile culminations. But The Deal isn’t an exercise in self-involved nostalgia; where his other projects largely homed in on carefully constructed frameworks, Sumac takes its strengths from a powerful fragmentation.
Though listed as an "auxiliary" member, bassist Brian Cook provides a point of reference for the music’s hollowed-out qualities. Cook’s playing with Russian Circles, in addition to his past work with These Arms Are Snakes and Botch, has seen him at his most commanding when manipulating the lower end of the sound’s spectrum. That bone-rattling distinction for Cook works so well with the other two members here that it’s almost surprising Sumac is a new band and hasn’t been around for years.
The music here employs both hardcore and post-metal with careful, but unhinged abandon. The outstanding "Hollow King", for instance, is a 12-minute rendering of Turner’s former ornate proclivities turned into something unpredictable and ruptured. That bellicosity is The Deal’s underpinning, giving the album a common thread to ground its otherwise improvisational focus.
Venturing into free form is a bold move, especially given that with few exceptions, the other projects for the band's members are built around directed compositional frameworks. There are certainly moments where the music struggles under the weight of its own improvised technique. But by and large, the risk pays off, the approach offering a sound familiar enough to speak to the individual members’ strengths, and vulnerable enough to see those singular characteristics take on something darker and more ferocious.
