Don’t let the album covers deceive you: Deafheaven is neither your standard rock nor black metal band. The blackgaze band has been polarizing to many people for various reasons. For example, black metal purists hate how Deafheaven takes black metal and experiments with it in more palatable ways, making the music more accessible for a larger audience, from the visual aesthetic to the music itself.
Furthermore, your average rock fan might be misled by the cover art and dislike the harshness and abrasiveness of the compositions, whether in the banshee-like vocals, the heavy drums or the wall of sound that the guitars make, even if it’s blackgaze and hypothetically softer on the ears due to the shoegaze elements.
“Lonely People with Power,” released on March 28, comes after a rough point in Deafheaven’s discography. In 2021’s “Infinite Granite,” the band made the creative decision to tone down the black metal aspects and focus more on shoegaze and dream pop.
The result was a neutered and somewhat uninspired album that was a far cry from the glory of Deafheaven’s previous works, especially their 2013 breakthrough blackgaze album “Sunbather” and 2018’s “Ordinary Corrupt Human Love.” That changes here.
“Lonely People with Power” gives the listener one chance to click off and listen to something else with the ambient-inspired intro “Incidental I.” It flows incredibly well into the next track.
“Doberman” showcases the return of classic black metal elements such as the banshee-like shrieking vocals and the blast beat drums. The guitars are super atmospheric, likely influenced by the band’s previous blackgaze instrumentation.
The lyric “All hail now the panopticon, see all around me, all of my failure” can relate to people who have paranoia. The panopticon could be a metaphor for God or a different authority power, but there are Biblical lyrics later in the song, so the former is more likely.
“Magnolia” has an annoying melody at the beginning that barely progresses. Luckily, later on in the song, it’s replaced by a really beautiful guitar melody that meshes well with the drums that slow down a bit to maximize the impact of the music.
A striking highlight of a lyric is “I owned everything thought to be suicidal mania,” which may reference the manic state many people with bipolar disorder might develop in between the states of depression. It’s a cryptic line that is easy to fixate on.
“The Garden Route” has fantasy-like adventurous lyrics. The lyric “Drinking silver from a dim spring of mercury, on the outskirts of a desert, the lifeless slither, still we seek, thirsting and wandering” sounds fantastical and grand, like an epic story.
“Heathen” is an excellent song that is abrasive yet enthralling to listen to. It has a great melody, courtesy of the guitar, along with impressive drum playing.
“Amethyst” begins more calmly before exploding into a cathartic black metal masterpiece within its eight-minute runtime. It’s so euphoric to listen to lyrics that read like poetry.
The parting lyrics “Majesty and misanthropy, beginning at forty, from the zenith underneath, nadir, nadir, nadir, nadir, nadir, nadir, nadir, nadir, from everyday living, waking in fear” show us that reaching rock bottom is despair-inducing. However, the nadir and zenith take turns existing like the sun and moon, so there is some hope in between the misery for change.
“Revelator” has a repetitive guitar lead, but the part with the blast beat drums sounds great. There’s a part of the song where an acoustic guitar is the only instrument playing and you can hear the looming of sounds in the background before the song returns to black metal.
“Body Behavior” has one of the best guitar melodies on the entire album. The lyrics about wanting to pursue romantic love over sexual desire but failing to do so in the long run by succumbing to depression is tragic.
“Incidental III” is a heavenly synth-based interlude with spoken word by influential rock band Interpol’s vocalist Paul Banks, delving into sexual attraction towards a woman and a protagonist. There is also a third person, according to how Banks says, “We looked” instead of “I looked.”
“Winona” is yet another solid blackgaze song under Deafheaven’s belt with the guitar melodies. The lyric “Power bastard, pathetic master, I’m reliving Saturn eating, his flesh is everything of mine” references that famous art piece by painter Francisco Goya of the Roman god Saturn cannibalizing his son and is generally a standout line for the power dynamic expressed.
“The Marvelous Orange Tree” has multiple great melodies peppered throughout the song with a good mix of clean and banshee vocals as well. Under a beautiful synth line, the lyric “Showing shivering skin, with you, my endless illness, with my endless illness, walking into blackness” is such a beautifully tragic way to wrap up the album.
The worst part about “Lonely People with Power” is its cover art. Beyond that, there’s a lot to love within the collection of songs. It’s understandable if it’s not for you, but this album is something special and poetic.
Rating: 4.5/5