Deafheaven - Sunbather Album Review

See that picture above? The two gentleman that look like hipster coffee Shop barristas? That is the core duo of Deafheaven, a California band who you need to be aware of, as they are on the cusp of stardom, and in my humble opinion, making US black metal a legitimate, mainstream thing. Scary, I know, but with their second album, Sunbather, the band has delivered one of the year's most thoughtful and elegant black metal albums, but also one of the best music albums of 2013, of any genre. Period.

Though tagged with the dreaded 'hipster' and 'post black metal' tag (or 'blackgaze' as its been coined), Deafheaven is not your typical black metal outfit, but if these guys were from Norway, no one would bat an eyelid. But because they are from California and don't fit typical black metal dogma's (I mean look at the eye melting color scheme of the album cover), reside on Deathwish Records, there's is still a large amount of criticism thrown these guys's way by die hard metal fans. Which is a shame as there is more passion and gorgeous music contained on Sunbather than a large percentage of nowadays 'troo' or 'kvlt' black metal, regardless of geography.

Following up on 2011s excellent Roads to Judah, but further deepening the level of emotive crescendos, Sunbather mixes the tremolo picked, shrill melodies and feral rasps of black metal and melds them with so called 'showgaze' moments of delicate and artful introspection. Despite many other 'real' black metal bands adding these elements over the years and getting away with it, Deafheaven's targeted introspective has been labelled 'post black' or 'post rock', and while these shimmery moments do have more in common with the likes of more delicate post rock bands like Day Without Dawn or At The Sounddawn, the fact is is simply a counterbalance to the brittle black metal and allow Deafheaven to transcend the usually stoic and rigid paradigms of what black metal is and can be. And to the band's credit, despite this melding of opposites, the band never fall into any sort of clean vocal bridge or sung moments, clearly keeping the vocal department directly in black metal, which would have been an easy trap to fall into.

The opening cascade "Dreamhouse", sets the listener up for the albums four stunning, lengthy (9-15 minutes) centerpieces with "Vertigo", 'Sunbather" and "The Pecan Tree" which are offset by three relevant and personal but ultimately needless interludes in "Windows", "Please Remember" and "Irresistible". And while the album's four main cuts do contain plenty of segments of wispy acoustics and shimmering atmospherics, the three interludes, (which most still might skip) are deeply moving moments that add another layer of depth and clarity to the overall post rock sheen of the album. But the four long tracks simply transcend everything and often deliver knee wilting melodic peaks and personal ambient valleys that defy black metal traits while still clearly delivering elegantly rendered black metal riffs. But while black metal is traditionally a colder, distant frostier medium, Deafheaven shows it can be warmer and more personal while still bristling with intensity. Whereas traditional black metal was generally a much more externally focused medium that transposed aggression and hate on outer ideologies, Sunbather seems to have come about from within and seep, fluidly outward from the band in deeply intrinsic and personal place.

There is a point about three minutes into the title track, where a delicate acoustic strum suddenly transitions into an absolutely stunning blackened blast and subsequent post rock shimmer bleeding with so much melody, it's downright tear inducing, and it simply encapsulates Deafheaven's sound like it or not. "Vertigo" ebbs with a little more familiar post rock acoustic patience before slowly building with patient, Pink Floyd-ian reverb before exploding with feral, vital harmonies that show Deafheaven can effortlessly deliver rending intensity and scathing harmonies in breathtaking unison. Closer "The Pecan Tree", gets right to the blackened snarl, but there is a chord progression around three minutes in that simply left me breathless, sitting in stupefied state of drained emotion before letting me down with a gorgeous piano segment and mid paced melancholic, dramatic climax. THAT folks, is what truly great music does.

If Deafheaven wore corpse paint and screamed about Satan and burning churches, the 'underground' metal community would be all over these guys. If they were from The Pacific Northwest or French (i.e Alcest) and had beards, the US black metal community would be hailing them as the next Wolves in the Throne Room or Krallice. But unfortunately, the close minded metal scene will more than likely respond to Sunbather with the same knuckle dragging resistance that greeted Hunter Hunt-Hendrix and Liturgy after Aesthetica came out in 2011 (thought to be fair he kind of walked into that backlash with some of his interviews, despite the music being simply amazing), proving crusty metal heads (myself included at times) are still more obsessed with image than actual music even in 2013. But it's albums like Sunbather that make me feel truly privileged to be a metal fan and once in rare while, be exposed to acts like Deafheaven.