In Arabic, the word “sumud” translates to the word “steadfastness”or “perseverance,” and has expanded in Palestinian culture to represent strength based on these tenets in the face of political and cultural subjugation. The presence that Washington D.C. quartet NØ MAN emanates and the message they’ve continued to deliver has been of survival, an outright refusal of erasure, of sumud. Vocalist Maha Shami, a daughter of Palestinian refugees, details her worldview, shares her lived experiences, and purges her inner turmoil in NØ MAN, contributing an essential voice to the traditions of their home city and the global punk canon. Their towering new LP, Between The Sword And The Neck, will be their second album with Iodine Records.
Over the course of the first three albums, NØ MAN, completed by guitarist/vocalist Matthew Michel, bassist Kevin Lamiell, and drummer Pat Broderick, have crafted material consisting of increasingly devastating tonality, riffage, and songwriting. On Between The Sword And The Neck, NØ MAN have merged the directions and influences that drove the creation of Erase and Glitter and Spit into a blistering new work. The songs tear angrily through the tracklisting, seldomly slowing down enough for listeners to catch their breath. Songs like “Moan,” and “Murmur,” provide respite from the new levels of absolutely pummeling heaviness and speed while the rest of the record serves new intensities around every corner. Between The Sword And The Neck begs repeat listens as Shami’s vocal performances now feel perfectly woven into each song’s instrumentation, her lyricism as sophisticated and meaningful as ever. The title Between The Sword And The Neck itself is taken from a quote from Palestinian poet Ghassan Kanafani, who in a 1970 interview spoke it to describe the impossibility of genuine negotiations between an oppressor (the sword) and the oppressed (the neck), signifying a refusal to engage in peace talks that equate to surrender or capitulation.
To draw listeners even closer to the personal place in which Between The Sword And The Neck resides, Shami invites family and trusted collaborators onto the album. Opening track “In Spite,” is “a love letter,” to Jenna Pup of HIRS and Kat Lanzillo-Hidalgo of FAIM, featuring guest performances from each vocalist as well as lyrics from both of their bands. On “In Tongues,” Shami includes lines from Kanafani as well as Palestinian poets Mahmoud Darwish, and Fadwa Tuqan, each credited in the lyrics sheet themselves. Over the ending of the song “They Have Names” the band has woven in names of lives lost to the occupation, spoken by their own friends and family. In Between The Sword And The Neck’s most meaningful expression of love, Shami also includes her daughter’s singing on “In Tongues,” and her mother Kamelah Shami’s voice and poetry on “نزيف على الورق.” In this, Shami creates a connection not only between Palestinians on different sides of this mortal coil, but also between three generations of Palestinian women in the same family.
Between The Sword And The Neck is a collection of sentiments definitive of NØ MAN’s career echoed consistently throughout its 26 minute runtime. Self-produced and recorded by the band themselves, it reveals the most intimate and vulnerable sources of love and pain in art. In the face of the horrors of genocide, NØ MAN carry sumud with them, refusing to kneel, refusing to die.
