Project Description
SUMERU
‘Summon Destroyer’
Album Review
02 September 2018
Reviewer – Benjamin Smith
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Sydney-based 5 piece Sumeru have produced an extraordinarily aggressive sophomore full length record. In Summon Destroyer the band have taken the foundations they built with debut Holy Lands and constructed something that defies definition and thwarts expectations.
Having built their reputation on live performances Sumeru have, since ’09, developed a space in the stoner, heavy blues scene. Combining an element of religious and mystical iconography with trance-inducing psychedelic sounds it was probably a pretty reasonable place for them to sit in terms of finding a movement within which to place themselves. But, it’s equally fair to say of their early music that it was probably denser and at least a little more confronting sonically than much of the work produced by contemporaries of that sound, both the domestic and international examples. There were always elements of something distinctly European, darker and more threatening than much of the west coast and southern US bands they took a lot of their more prominent influence from.
With Summon Destroyer, Sumeru have embraced something more conventionally metal and created a record that is really, really fucking heavy. From start to finish the moments of reprieve are few and short-lived. Vocally there is real menace all the way through the record and the tempo is certainly increased above where it had been on Holy Lands. Personally I think this record is an excellent example of what metal does best. There are no particularly flashy elements from any of the musicians making up the collective. Rather, it is a group with a vision who have come together in making something singular and in this case it is fucking brutal in its execution. Are there heaver records going to be released this year? Of course, but this one isn’t burdened by trying to reinvent the genre and take it in new directions. It is a record that could comfortably have been released ten years ago and probably ten years before that. The beauty of that is that it isn’t, in a way much of the contemporary metal acts are, complicated and cluttered by production values more appropriate to a techno record and sensibilities more directed to angsty teens. Its just fucking tough and uncompromising without being self-consciously so. In short it’s a damn good record.
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