Track By Tracks: SUMO - III (2024)

1. Alyssa:

We wanted to create an energetic, driving track to start the album with—something we hadn’t really explored much in our other songs. In its earliest form, the song was a bit more subdued, so the directive for us was to keep cranking the speed until it started to sound like a freight train. It’s just straight mayhem until the first break, with a mellower middle before launching into one of our doomiest outro sections yet. We named it after Alyssa Carson, who, from a young age, aspired to become an astronaut and travel to Mars. Another “A” name also heavily influenced this track — Allison by the Pixies, which comes from one of our shared favorite albums, Bossanova.

2. IPCRESS:

With IPCRESS, we just had that central guitar arpeggio from Chris, which provided this hypnotic, repetitive motif we could keep building on. That was a great foundation that allowed us to unleash our inner-indulgent prog nerds. It’s also significant for us as it’s the first song we wrote with Hector on drums. This is probably the closest we’ll ever get to writing some Goblin-esque 70s prog rock. This track has this strong visual quality to it, reminiscent of Morse code transmitted into outer space that slowly dissolves into a fog of its original form. The name actually has an interesting origin as well… It’s derived from the title of a Michael Caine spy film from the mid-60s called The IPCRESS File. IPCRESS itself is an acronym for a brainwashing device that’s the film’s central MacGuffin —Induction of Psychoneurosis by Conditioned Reflex under Stress. Naturally, that convoluted origin has absolutely nothing to do with the song itself, though it does sound cool.

3. SETI3:

Like our previous SETI installments, this is a teaser of a future song. A death waltz in space with two bass lines that squelch like some vintage analog bass tone. The placement in the sequence is, as with all the songs on III, intentional. The final transmission squelch at the end sets the stage for Shadow of Antiope.

4. Shadow of Antiope:

We unanimously chose this one as the first single since we all felt it represented the overall direction of the album really well. It almost has a ‘90s feel to it but cranked to 11. It’s a semi-sequel of sorts to Antiope off our previous LP, SUMO TWO. Chris played that initial riff and, noticing it resembled the riff in Antiope, decided to make it a continuation. Some songs just flow naturally — this one essentially wrote itself. Every riff that follows the first feels intuitive as if each one makes up the notes in a scale or the words in a poem. It’s simple, but you can feel the instruments moving cohesively around the central riff that starts the whole song off.

5. Eta Carinae:

This is one of the most epic songs we’ve ever put together — and it all started life as a short instrumental much like the aforementioned SETI3. We arranged it almost symphonically, with each successive part building on the structure and chords of the previous section in this grand ebb and flow. The bass is colored by this pulsing, tremolo effect that mimics the heartbeat of someone stuck in place, waiting for release — which happens in 2 phases. As you can imagine, the epic scope of this one made it an absolute nightmare to record. There is also a sister song to Eta Carinae that we’re planning to release sometime in 2025.

6. Apophis:

This one evolved from a much busier place than where it ended up. Chris originally wrote the song for two guitars with a sort of Latin feel throughout, so it naturally took some effort to blend it all into one guitar part. It was tough to balance the mallet-like sections with the more strummed parts. Once we started playing the piece together, though, it all started to make sense. The drums played a crucial role in shaping the song’s dynamics. We followed the percussion’s lead to either expand or tighten the feel. It almost has this elastic quality to it, with the odd time and circular percussion making this one of the looser-sounding songs on the record. It all aligns well with the title, which is the name of an asteroid predicted to come very close to Earth in 2029. Amado is planning to post a fretless playthrough of the track in the near future, so stay tuned for that.

7. Cygnus:

This was the last one to be written for the album, as we all felt that we needed one more heavy piece to round things out. It’s a great example of how a single riff—its sequence of notes and its pattern—can evolve into multiple riffs, all carrying similar elements. The song has this nice quiet-loud dynamic, setting a series of heavy, staccato guitar riffs at odd times against these mellow breaks throughout the song. We named this one after the Cygnus Loop, which is a glowing gas ring from a supernova remnant.

8. Enceladus:

We kept jokingly referring to this one as ensalada while we were recording the album, though that’s not really much of a joke, is it? It's not really a homonym or anything clever there. Anyway, this one’s the epic send-off. It collapses in on itself over and over again. We wanted the isolation to be felt at the very start of the pattern, with the guitars starting off sparse and barely anything behind them. The end is the lighting of the funeral pyre, all the way down to the ashes scattering in the wind.