Sumerlands - Sumerlands: Album Review

Is the metal community mature enough to realize that metal is long dead? Yes, no matter how much you spin your Judas Priest or Slayer records, it will not change the fact that Jeff Hanneman is long gone, Bruce Dickinson can’t sing anymore, and Judas Preist’s best days are long behind them. Yet most modern metal bands still cling to the concept of 80s metal. Modern thrash bands that aren’t Lich King or Havok stick to repeating the same cliches that made 90s thrash insufferable. Modern speed metal is even worse, with so little personality or style that it can be hard to not fall asleep listening to a single track. And yet, there is Sumerlands. A band that ditches the speed and drama of metal both classic and modern to deliver what is perhaps the tightest and strongest new release of the year.

Sumerlands is a metal band. That’s a loaded sentence, I know. You’re probably thinking, “what kind of metal? Black? Death? Tech death? Experimental? The answer is, none of the above. Sumerlands doesn’t have any unique style or gimmick (except for some aesthetic choices, but I’ll get to that in a minute), they are, in as frank of terms as possible, metal. Harkening back to the days when metal wasn’t even called metal, but rather this new heavily distorted sound that combined blues rock with harsh noise that we never really knew what was until someone called it “acid rock”. In any case, that’s what Sumerlands provides. The guitars are heavily distorted, but not harsh enough that riffs get lost in the noise. The drums keep the pace, with no show-offy solos and rarely get to speeds faster than the average Priest track. The bass exists only to add weight to the music, the vocalist is a dry sounding man with a decent range.

In fact, nothing about this album is really flashy. That’s half the reason why I enjoyed it so much. It’s been so long since I sat down and listened to an album that didn’t feel like it was borrowing anything from Priest, Metallica, or Sabbath. That being said, the whole aesthetic of the album is still reminiscent of a style, that being the grimy pre-speed metal era of metal. What does that mean? Guitars with distortion and solos that show off some skill, but nothing face-melting or blistering fast. The riffs are mostly blues rock tunes with the sound and skill pulled off by someone like Mercyful Fate. As for the vocalist, he’s a little muddied by the music, but there is a pleasant echo to his voice, his vocal range is impressive, pulling off higher pitched wails and some deeper Ozzy-style drones as the riffs play on.

While Sumerlands do have some prog and doom elements, the one thing they don’t take from those themes is length. The 8 tracks are only around 5 minutes long each, bringing the whole thing to about 40 minutes in length. A dealbreaker to some, but I assure you what this album lacks in length, it makes up for in quality. Could some of these songs be longer? Sure, but I doubt they would be anywhere near as impactful. 

My only gripes with this album comes with the fact that I prefer cleaner sounding guitars rather than those muddied by noise, but where it fails me personally, I can understand the choice to mix it in this style, and to capture that 80s acid rock style, it’s a great sound that at times, only comes off as cheesy as opposed to great.

Sumerlands is a fantastic record by a band whose content I’m incredibly excited for. Hopefully this band will find its audience (and judging by the bandcamp page, it already has) and will only propel their music to new heights. In a year of mediocre releases, an album that was just trying to be good, turned out to be some of the best of the year.

7/10

TL;DR: It’s classic metal at its finest. No gimmicks, no showboating. It’s well worth your time.