Deafheaven’s relationship with black metal has been a difficult one – not metal enough for the metal kids, too metal for the indie crowd, went the logic – but on their new album Ordinary Corrupt Human Love the band have turned that outsider status into a virtue.
Their second album, 2013’s Sunbather, saw them become a genre band who operate in their own interesting grey area – in the same way that Death Grips were to hip-hop or Fucked Up were for hardcore punk. Described as “genre-agnostic”, on Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, Deafheaven tear apart the musical categories with the same zeal as a new atheist going head to head with a pious clergyman on a Sunday morning chat show.
Album opener You Without End sees the band combine piano with Kerry McCoy’s lush melodic guitar lines, which swell as actor Nadia Kury reads a short story about the band’s former home in Oakland. It’s a new direction that has earned comparisons to the posing rock of Queen and the Foo Fighters’ stadium pomp, and at its most gentle it sounds like nothing the band have done before. There are further hints of post-rock and ambient (Near), dream-pop (Night People) and shoegaze (Canary Yellow), but the black metal that made them so divisive can still be found.
Those dark hues are represented throughout by George Clarke’s vocals – which never soften – but also on the album’s epic second track Honeycomb, which sheds You Without End’s piano and serenity for shrieking guitars and unrelenting bass double-time blasts from drummer Dan Tracy. Even here though, McCoy is able to stitch in guitar licks that would be at home on a Status Quo album or something from Darkthrone. It’s a mix that could be a trainwreck but each transition from black metal to indie via shoegaze and soft rock is so carefully handled, the result is a heady mix that sees the band reach new heights that are powerful and aggressive yet subtle and disarming.
It’s an approach that will not impress their metal detractors, but to be frank: who cares? Clarke, McCoy and co have made one of 2018’s most ambitious and urgent albums.
