Sumac, Moor Mother - The Film (2025) [Hi-Res]

Review by Paul Simpson

Moor Mother first crossed paths with SUMAC when she remixed "World of Light" from the avant-metal band's ambitious 2024 album, The Healer. This led to the creation of The Film, a full-length collaborative work that plays as a tense, panic-stricken narrative. Both artists are experts at controlling dynamics, painting vivid scenes that build up to explosions of fury and chaos, and they seem especially in tune with each other's sensibilities on this effort. The lyrics express a desire to escape from the violent, hateful systems causing destruction to our planet and seek refuge in a healthier, more compassionate world somewhere else. During the album's opening scene, the poet expresses disbelief in all the forces trying to silence her. "Scene 2: The Run" begins as a swarm of electronic buzzing, setting the stage for Moor Mother to spew forth appropriately rapid-paced verses about running away from a displaced reality, with her voice often emphasized by demonic distortion. Aaron Turner's guttural growls and flashing riffs take over, piling up into manic drumming and hoarse screams. "Scene 3" has a slowly building, moody rhythm that leaves plenty of space for furious lyrics about survival and being separated from our dreams by society. "Camera" and "The Truth Is Out There" are more concerned with brainwashing and obscuring reality, with the former building up to a climax that feels like an implosion of sanity, and the latter being a synth-driven space exploration for extraterrestrial life. "Scene 5: Breathing Fire" makes multiple references to both A Tribe Called Quest's third album and Killah Priest's "B.I.B.L.E. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)," the mind-expanding final track on GZA's classic Liquid Swords. The song itself is a raw torrent that expands, contracts, and mutates over the course of nearly 17 minutes. The Film is a powerful work from two unstoppable creative forces on the same wavelength.

Tracklist:
1-1 Sumac;Moor Mother - Scene 1 [4:50]
1-2 Sumac;Moor Mother - Scene 2: The Run [12:31]
1-3 Sumac;Moor Mother - Hard Truth (feat. Candice Hoyes) [1:50]
1-4 Sumac;Moor Mother - Scene 3 (feat. Kyle Kidd) [7:02]
1-5 Sumac;Moor Mother;SOVIE - Scene 4 [4:14]
1-6 Sumac;Moor Mother - Camera [8:43]
1-7 Sumac;Moor Mother - The Truth is Out There [1:16]
1-8 Sumac;Moor Mother - Scene 5: Breathing Fire [16:38]