Double Review: Deafheaven – Lonely People With Power
Reliquary Tower
As you may have guessed from my bio, blackgaze was my jumping-in point for black metal, and although I was about 5 or 6 years late to the Sunbather craze, it still ended up being a pretty formative album for me in terms of its effect on my music taste. Lonely People With Power has been the album I’ve been most looking forward to this year, so I’m very excited about the chance to tell those Pitchfork bros what I think for a change.
It’s been a little less than 7 years since internet fight-starters/blackgaze band Deafheaven released their last proper metal album, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. While their pretty-much-entirely-shoegaze-so-they-can-give-George’s-throat-and-Daniel’s-wrists-a-rest-during-live-shows album Infinite Granite has always been one of my favorites, it was met with pretty mixed reviews upon release. The band has hyped up Lonely People With Power for months now, telling us that it would be their heaviest album so far. “Heaviest yet” and “best yet” are two different things, but I think this record might just be both.
There’s a certain cinematic feel to Lonely People With Power—yes, there’s a story that’s being told through the lyrics, but the music itself carries that narrative sense too. There’s this sort of feeling of “home”— a baseline of sorts—up until “The Garden Route,” after which there’s a mounting of tension, which reaches its climax between the noise section of “Incidental II” and “Body Behavior.” “Incidental III” and the beginning of “Winona” serve well as falling action, all of which resolves with the end of “Winona” and “The Marvelous Orange Tree.” With this being their longest album yet, it would have been easy for there to be a track or two that just feel like filler, but I don’t hear any wasted space on this record. Everything feels really intentional and thought-out. The shoegaze/post-rock portions of the album give the listener plenty of time to catch their breath between the heavier segments, but are careful never to drag. Lonely People With Power sports the lowest average track length of the band’s discography, so it’s good to see them make such good use of the time.
There are some real heavy-hitters on this release. “Magnolia” and “Heathen,” the two singles from the album, both made a good first impression on me, but after a dozen or so listens, they’re on their way to becoming two of my favorite Deafheaven songs. I appreciate how straightforward “Magnolia” is: heavy from start to finish. The palm muting of the guitars, the intensity of Daniel Tracy’s drumming, and the raw, unrelenting shriek/growl hybrid of George Clarke’s vocals propel the whole thing forwards. Place your bets now on how many ribs will get bruised in that pit.
The dream-poppy beginning of “Heathen” is beautiful—hands down one of my favorite parts of the album. George’s cleans have only improved over the last few years and I’m glad he chose to give them some airtime. That being said, I’m not sure anywhere on this album hits me quite like the transition into his harshes about halfway through (although the noise segment of “Incidental II” gets close), and the riff that follows is the stuff that dreams and speeding tickets are made of.
“Winona” is another brand new all-timer for me. The pianissimo blast beats at the beginning give way to massive guitar tones that wash over the listener like waves. The beautiful, lush chords contrast with the agonized, tortured lyrics (practically a Deafheaven trademark at this point); it all passes perfectly into “The Marvelous Orange Tree” to close out the album with its bittersweet sense of introspection.
The best way I can describe this record is feeling like a summary of the band’s career, a sentiment which I’ve seen echoed in a few other reviews. Various tracks and moments within them stick out to me as bits that could comfortably belong in their other works. Pretty much all of “The Garden Route” could go well on Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, “Winona” would feel far from out of place on Sunbather, “Body Behavior” could be a cut B-side from New Bermuda, and the beginning of “Heathen” would have been right at home on Infinite Granite. As a whole though, if you’ve yet to listen to this album, I’d say it’s fair to go into it expecting a marriage between Ordinary Corrupt Human Love and New Bermuda with “Black Brick” officiating. So throw some rice for the newlyweds because Lonely People With Power is the best Deafheaven has ever sounded.
4.5/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
Falxifer
It’s that time again, the most “polarizing” metal band of the last decade is back! Deafheaven have certainly come a very long way, and while they would defer taking credit as poster boys of “blackgaze” towards Alcest (which yeah, let’s be real), they’ve still managed to make a name for themselves and carved their own path. After a very sharp turn from metal into pure shoegaze and post-rock with Infinite Granite, their new album Lonely People with Power is both a return to their black metal-influenced aggression with the subtle nuance and ambiance of the aforementioned preceding record.
The biggest thing to note about this record is how the band have successfully tied together all the different directions they’ve taken throughout their career into a cohesive whole. That being said, the name of the game of the album is primarily aggression; co-founding guitarist Kerry McCoy and second guitarist Shiv Mehra, alongside bassist Chris Johnson take center stage with their riffs and walls of noise. Impressively, despite taking a very intense and overwhelming approach, they still manage to sprinkle swaths of melody to make something, dare I say, beautiful among so much chaos, even if it’s with a very somber and melancholic tone. However, the show stealers are co-founding front-man George Clarke and drummer Daniel Tracy; the latter is a beast on the kit who seamlessly switches from pure blistering blast beats and double bass to more rhythmic and stomping beats. And of course, Clarke’s wailing roars are the choir leading the sonic violence.
At first glance, this is easily the band’s most intense and vitriolic record since New Bermuda (2015), and in line with their stand-alone single “Black Brick.” But as I stated at the beginning of this review, the band are bringing bits and pieces of their entire body of work; their more atmospheric shoegaze leanings are still present in their wall of noise guitars, but also in the quieter parts. The mid-way breakdowns of “Doberman,” “Revelator,” and “Body Behavior,” along with the openings and first halves of “The Garden Route,” “Heathen,” “Amethyst,” and “Winona,” represent some of the best songs on the album. All in all a perfect balance of coarseness and softness.
Moreover, the band have really solidified their use of keyboards and noise; the former has been used since 2018’s Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, and the latter, while mostly achieved through distortion and flange effects, has really been taken to the next level on this record. In some areas the band really lock into their old school shoegaze influence with how intense their walls of noise get; add then the texture of the synths and you get an engrossing sonic miasma in between the genuine moments of melodic beauty with a metallic sheen. It’s kinda funny how the band that’s been the bane of so many “trve kvlt” purists manages to overload the senses without their music sounding like a deep fried meme, but I digress. The best moments where the band used synths and keys are as added textures for the guitars, and to create ambiance, and the best thing I can say about them is how they’re not a throwaway or after-thought; they’re part of the instrumentation and arrangements. While the liner notes don’t specify which band member handled them (more than likely Shiv, and/or possibly Kerry too), producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen—who does as good a job working with the band’s metal side as he did with their shoegazing side—is credited as an additional synth player and he definitely delivered in boosting the band’s sound.
While there is very little to complain about here (unless you don’t gel with Deafheaven at all or are married to elitist BS) one area I do find fault in is how the band don’t really break new ground with their sound. Obviously they’re doing what they do best and with the best parts of their entire oeuvre, but it kinda makes this record something of a transitory album, like putting a pin on their development since 2018. On the bright side, that means whatever they do next might be something fresh, or at least another departure. As it stands, this does feel like a “best of DFHVN” type of album, and it’s extremely consistent, cohesive and compact, which does feel like it was done in response to the criticisms of how long their songs and album lengths have been. Although they’re still doing long songs, they’re no longer 10-minute epics in hour-plus albums. Overall, a really damn good album and the band’s most focused record yet, but it falls just a bit short of being an all-time great.
4/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
Lonely People With Power is out now through Roadrunner Records.
