Deafheaven : Lonely People With Power

Deafheaven are the kind of band I never thought I’d listen to, let alone find myself fanboying over. The black/death metal shrieks of singer George Clarke were not my taste; blast beats like they were going out of style, not to mention the caffeinated guitar riffs that never relented. On paper I would have passed on their 2013 album Sunbather. But for some reason I listened. And continued to listen for the remainder of 2013 until Sunbather was one of my favorite albums of the year.

When you get inside and start digging into a Deafheaven record you start hearing things that make them a completely different band than the rest of the metal scene. Of course they’re an immense metal band. But there’s also touches of quieter, melodic moments that bring to mind shoegaze and dream pop(especially on 2018s Ordinary Corrupt Human Love), ambient textures, atmospheric drone, and then the vocals. Screamed and shrieked at full force, but the lyrics themselves are poetry. Melancholy even. Reflections of life, both good and bad. They’re quite stunning.

So Deafheaven on the surface are a black/death/post metal band for labeling purposes, but what they really are are unique and singular. True artists.

After the divisive 2021 album Infinite Granite where the band made an almost shriek-free, almost full on shoegaze/dream pop album complete with front and center melody driven vocals, Deafheaven return to much heavier territory on Lonely People With Power. It feels like a return to form on the surface, but this album continues to evolve Deafheaven’s sound. Whether you hear it or not.

Full disclosure: I absolutely loved Infinite Granite. I thought it was a pretty bold move to make a record of such beauty and melody in the face of a lot of metal fans that can’t stand change. It shows that the 5-pc California band was making music for themselves first, and fans later. Who stuck around were the true fans, and got the influences and inspirations they were pulling from.

“Incidental I” opens things. A barely minute-long incidental piece that is reminiscent of the ambient passages from Sunbather. This leads into the pulverizing “Doberman”, a chugging marvel of Gothic black metal. Drummer Daniel Tracy gets an absolute workout with the double drum kick foot work. The song explodes into an absolute sonic annihilation. Then “Magnolia” rolls in, destroying all in its wake. This is an absolutely blistering metal track that brings to mind New Bermuda and it’s 80s thrash love. Just an unrelenting metal workout.

Lonely People With Power brings the metal full-on. From the speed metal fury of “Revelator” to the blast beat fury of “Body Behavior” and it’s almost post-punk attitude in the vocals. “Winona” starts out in metal mode, but gives us a quiet dream pop interlude before ending in fury. But there’s also moments of quiet, subdued contemplation. “The Garden Route” slows things down, bringing metal riffs but there’s a sense of melancholy in the delivery. The beautiful “Amethyst” is the centerpiece with its over 8-minute runtime and epic build from spoken word vocals to a storm of guitars and shrieks to the calm after the storm.

There’s also “Incidental II” which has Boy Harsher’s Jae Matthews in a storm of distortion and chaos, while “Incidental III” has Interpol’s Paul Banks with a spoken word piece over backwards guitars and a melancholy mood.

So while some may see Deafheaven’s Lonely People With Power as a return to form, it really is yet another step forward. They bring all the tools they’ve used in the past, but now with more knowledge as to how to use them to the best of their ability. Another huge step forward not only Deafheaven, but heavy metal in general.