Photo by Nedda Afsari

Deafheaven’s blistering the boundaries of metal is undeniably one of the most influential sounds of the past 20 years in heavy music. Their 2010 sophomore classic, Sunbather, changed the shape of the scene — polarizingly so — and that discourse hasn’t let up in the years since each and every time they reemerge with new music. 2021’s Infinite Granite was perhaps the most divisive, though, even for Deafheaven loyalists, as the San Fran band blurred the lines between heaviness and dreamier pastures of soft shoegaze and slowcore, for their most delicate listen to date. It was a big risk experiment that paid off as far as these pages go. Still, they’re not ones to succumb to predictability. “Magnolia”, the lead single from their upcoming sixth studio effort, Lonely People With Power, is both a retreat to the band’s heavier roots without explicitly returning to forms that worked in the past. This is Deafheaven silencing past critiques by going fully metal on the surface in high gauge steel riffs and chugging rhythms cranked up all the way at a velocity that feels unhinged. The charred scourge of George Clarke’s vocals painting gothic soliloquys reminds us that they’re still black-hearted romantics beneath it all. “At Heaven’s gate standing with the guards / My love is endless / Everything of you is me / Every step is toward the grave,” he screams. “Could it be flesh and blood were all we gave?” It’s everything on this occasion.

Directed by: Sean Stout

Deafheaven’s Lonely People With Power will be released March 28th on Roadrunner Records.