REVIEW: Deafheaven 10/16/21
On October 16, 2021, Deafheaven took the stage of the Ace Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles.
The atmospheric black metal quintet was originally started in 2010 in the Bay Area, but like almost all of their fans to date, I first listened to their seminal second release Sunbather. There is really nothing left to be said about Sunbather that hasn’t already been hashed and rehashed on mu-core sites and throughout college radio stations since its release eight years ago. This holds true for their follow up album Brought to the Water, a project that brought Deafheaven’s sound out of the clouds and into a more thrashy, riff-driven area. What I will say: these two albums represent Deafheaven’s high point in songwriting excellence, making their new content even more dismal.
Opening for Deafheaven was Storefront Church, an LA-based band I had never heard of before they introduced themselves between their second and third songs. Their sound recalled Father John Misty or Fleet Foxes; drawn-out vocals combined with a kind of ambient western sound. If you like the soundtrack to Westworld, you will like Storefront Church. That said, the vocals did fit the music in a way that you could tell took a lot of finagling, and they were admirably cohesive as a band and as a group of musicians. It only takes one person pulling way too hard in one direction to totally drag the energy down. Storefront Church was balanced, and knew what sound they wanted to make.
After a set change and a while spent staring at the ceiling in the Ace Hotel (go see a show there at least once - it’s not my favorite venue because it’s a theatre so everyone sits - not ideal for a black metal show - but it’s an amazing room nonetheless), Deafheaven took the stage and started hitting some big Deafheaven chords. I’ll admit that ever since their 2018 release of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, I have been less and less of a fan of the group. And while I was not a massive fan of Storefront Church, I still admired their ability to have a focus and a goal, which, while it doesn’t always have to be very specific, is still necessary for me to enjoy someone’s music. I don’t care if you’re just slapping some paint on the blank canvas, but there’s a reason that some art is good and some is bad: good art has an idea and intentionality behind it. Even Jackson Pollock had something in his head while he was going at it. Deafheaven, however, immediately seemed to have lost this kind of focus. Now this isn’t me saying, “Fuck this, I just want to hear Sunbather!!” but at some point a band’s songwriting has to go beyond the fact that the band members are on stage and playing their instruments. The first two-thirds of their set felt like the band was playing songs that they all knew their parts to but did not know the goal of the song. I respect vocalist George Clarke’s attempts at pushing past his iconic screech, but his singing felt off and almost listless. Lines felt like they would just kind of start and end without any reason or need. This all became clear when Deafheaven broke out into “Brought to the Water.” That song has a mission, and the mission lies in the writing. The song starts, it brings you to a point, and then it leaves you at that point. After something like that, it became clear that Deafheaven do not know where else to take and leave their listeners with their new material.
Everything crystallized when they ended their set with “Dream House.” If I didn’t have anything new to say about Sunbather, I certainly don’t have anything new to say about “Dream House.” Just go listen to it, and if you’re feeling adventurous, put it on and then watch videos of large ships in storms such as this one. It’s also great music for a sunset, but I digress. Seeing that Deafheaven is still capable of laying down a performance of that scale, making a sound that feels like a black hole is opening up in front of you, ultimately led me to the thesis of this review. Like any relationship, it is normal for a band to lose sight of what it is trying to do and the initial feeling that made the members want to be a band and write their songs in the first place. This is where I think Deafheaven is at the moment. I didn’t like their show. They feel like they’re trying to be Deafheaven the idea instead of Deafheaven the five people who like making black metal. Kenny Loggins said it best, but Deafheaven needs to figure out who they are and what they really want to be doing up on stage, or why they even want to be up there in the first place.
-Spencer Churchill, Music Director