How many American rock groups possess the intensity and gravity to collaborate with Japanese experimental-noise-rock legend Keiji Haino? Not many, but Northwest trio Sumac earned that honor with 2018’s American Dollar Bill… and this year's Even for just the briefest moment…. What these releases reveal is Sumac’s ability to create an exquisite tension in the context of minimalist metal and sculptural noise rock. These musicians traffic in heady realms, reconfiguring metal to a severe degree not heard since Caspar Brötzmann Massaker dropped those stealth-bomb-like records in the 1980s and ’90s. The last Sumac album proper, 2018's Love in Shadow, is brutal yet brainy death metal distinguished by Aaron Turner's more-guttural-than-thou vocals and epic, labyrinthine song structures. by Dave Segal