Rewind to June 2013 – Deafheaven has just released Sunbather dividing music critics and metal fans around the world. Their sound combined black metal, shoegaze, and post-rock into one cohesive, beautiful album. It was a sound that anyone could appreciate, whether you were a tried-and-true metal-head, or someone who had yet to dip their toes into the scene. Deafheaven set the bar for “hipster black metal” quite high, and everyone wondered how they could possibly follow it up. Now its October 2015 and Deafheaven have just dropped New Bermuda – their highly anticipated third album through Deathwish. It’s clear from the get-go that Deafheaven did not want to just make another Sunbather, and they have definitely heard the criticism that they are not “metal enough” -  and have taken it to heart.
Deafheaven make their intentions clear on the first track, Brought to the Water. Opening with their classic doomy riffs and blast beat drums, it quickly diverges into a much heavier hook – their new more “metallic” sound – and it sounds amazing. Don’t interpret this as Deafheaven leaving behind their old gazey, winding music. If anything, they have expanded on that more. It’s amazing to me that such harsh riffs can transition so seamlessly to tame, distorted guitar hooks.
New Bermuda’s second track, Luna, is my favorite track from the album, and my new favorite Deafheaven song. Dissecting the lyrics, Luna is a song about vocalist George Clarke finding his place in LA, but quickly realizes he was “Tricked into some fodder about this oasis”, and his dream is actually turning out to be a nightmare. While the lyrics to Deafheaven’s music are nearly impossible to discern without a lyric sheet, the songs most impactful lines always come through crystal clear and leave me with chills. “I’ve boarded myself inside. I’ve refused to exit / There is no ocean for me / There is no glamour / Only the mirage of water ascending from the asphalt / I gaze at it from the oven of my home” he screams in the song’s chorus, before it dissolves into the greatest breakdown I have ever heard in any metal song. The lyrics on this album are seriously on-point, meshing perfectly with their harsh, gazey instrumentation.
Following Luna is Baby Blue – another fantastic track, and my next favorite on the album. It opens with drummer Daniel Tracy flexing his muscles, and proving that he’s capable of more than just blast beat drumming. A distorted guitar riff wanders across the track for a minute or two, and then everything falls silent. The band then builds an amazing swell and climax – akin to those found on tracks from Earth and Mogwai – and drops into an incredibly powerful hook. “I begged not to carry the corpse /To not be a queer fish in unforgiving hearts” Clarke yells as guitarist Kerry McCoy pulls out one of Deafheaven’s most impressive solos to date. The song ends with an incredibly bleak interlude, much like those found on Godspeed You! Black Emperor tracks, and set’s the tone for the next song.
Come Back meanders in with a tame, emotional riff, but quickly explodes into New Bermuda’s hardest, loudest song. The guitar work here is insane. It almost seems like 3 distinct songs combined into one, much like Radiohead’s Paranoid Android, and it works perfectly. It’s also clear on this track that Deafheaven was excited to explore a more psychedelic sound with the song’s heavily distorted guitar interludes along with some acoustic instrumentation.
The last track on the album, Gifts for the Earth, sounds like a completely different band at first. A very soft guitar hook clashes awkwardly with Clarke’s screamed vocals, but the track picks up towards the end. This a song about death, and the lyrics are incredibly grim. The last lyrics on the album are “I imagine the end / Then further downward so that I can rest / Cocooned by the heat of the ocean floor / In the dark, my flesh to disintegrate into consumption for the earth.” The track ends with a somber guitar hook, before fading into silence.
New Bermuda is very impressive album, and has quickly become my favorite album released this year. You can stream the album in its entirety here.