Photo by Nedda Afsari

“Magnolia” was arguably one of the heaviest songs to come our way from Deafheaven in quite some time, but it would have been a misnomer to assume the transcendent black metal band would easily be forgetting the dreamier sculptures they had carved from rock on their divisive 2021 effort, Infinite Granite. “Heathen” hears them breaking into a middle ground between both of those worlds. Depending on your vantage point, tranquility and scorched Earth are either sonically coexisting or figuratively being torn apart on the same plane, with its foreground of pastel intimacy and painted reflections becoming more vacantly distant in its main character. “I wonder what is numbness,” ponders George Clarke at one point. It very may well be the giving in to corruption through power and sin, as metallic corrosion and shrill screams beset the listen. To answer Clarke’s question, it’s the sound of willingly forfeiting love to become an ungodly being.

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