Featuring guitarist/vocalist Aaron Turner (Old Man Gloom, ex-Isis), bassist Brian Cook (Russian Circles, ex-Botch), and drummer Nick Yacyshyn (Baptists), Sumac is a metallic supergroup that specializes in bone-rattling riffs, lengthy compositions, and general uneasy listening. They’re also incredibly prolific: Since debuting in 2015, they’ve released four albums and an EP. May You Be Held is very much a continuation of the trio’s last album, 2018’s Love in Shadow. “Some of the foundation of this record was built off things that were recorded during the Love in Shadow sessions,” Turner tells Apple Music. “And there were lyrical themes I was working on with the last record that I felt didn’t cover the full extent of what I was trying to express. That record really came together right around the time of our last presidential election, which was, in my view, a turning point in our American culture. Everything that kind of started there has only grown and become more exacerbated in the intervening years, so I felt like there was more to say.” Below, Turner takes us through the twists and turns of May You Be Held. A Prayer for Your Path “This was the very last thing that was recorded when we were in the studio, and even before we mixed it I immediately felt like this had to be the opening to the album. Luckily, Brian and Nick agreed. It’s got an enveloping atmosphere but also this kind of peripheral tension to it. It seemed like a gentle opening into the world of this record, which is actually pretty tumultuous and even pretty caustic at a number of points. So we wanted to ease people into what is overall a pretty rough ride at times.” May You Be Held “The opening riff for the song just kind of sounds like an AC/DC riff, and I wasn’t sure how that fit into the parameters of what we do as Sumac. Yet the more I played it and the more I thought about the impactful simplicity of it, the more I felt that my discomfort with it was an indicator that it needed to be pursued. And by the time we had fleshed it out as a band, the AC/DC comparison had diminished quite considerably. Lyrically speaking, the song is kind of divided into two halves. The first half is centered around my fear of the future on an existential level, but also on an individual level, as it pertains to being a parent. After having brought a child into this world and looking at what the world is like at the moment, I can't help but think forward to what the future is going to be like for his generation. The second half of the song addresses the idea that regardless of what does happen, I have zero control over the path that we take collectively, and that my son has his own path before him.” The Iron Chair “Thrill Jockey suggested this song as a ‘single,’ and even though we are in no way a singles band, we agreed that offering this tangled piece as an introduction to the album felt like the right move. Given the climate that we’re all in currently, it also seemed appropriate because [this song] is a way of kind of harmonizing the inner state with our external world. Things are confusing right now, and nothing is familiar in the sense of what we've been accustomed to up to this point. And for me, there's no immediately obvious emotional signifiers for this song. It covers a wide range in terms of the emotional directives in it, so I felt like that was a good way to sort of lay the groundwork for the record emerging into the world.” Consumed “Brian pointed out something interesting about the contrast of the two kind of pillars of the record, ‘May You Be Held’ and ‘Consumed,’ in that ‘May You Be Held’ starts off kind of frantic and then diminishes into this very bleak and almost barren anti-structure by the end, and this song is kind of the opposite—it starts out slowly and very minimal but by the end kind of escalates into this blown-out frenzy. That wasn't intentional, but when we look back on the record as a whole, it's kind of neat to see that arc having happened again on a totally subconscious level.” Laughter and Silence “It’s interesting to try to title instrumental tracks. This may seem like a trivial example, but there is something that I've observed in children, and this was even before having a child of my own: The moment of greatest exhilaration and laughter and energy and exuberance is often immediately followed by a violent accident and tears. And I feel like that speaks to the human experience in a lot of ways—and also the present moment we’re in, which of course means different things for many people. But I just feel like we have had to take a prolonged silence and breath to look at where we are and more deeply consider the result of being thrust into isolation and separation—and also upheaval.”