[rayword45]

Day 22: Sunbather by Deafheaven (Album Choice: EzExZeRo7497)

I've been meaning to listen to this one for a while. Partially because the idea of shoegaze combined with black metal sounds interesting, but mostly because, you guessed it, it's another Pitchfork-hype baby.

Day 8 of the pledge: So yesterday I attempted listening to some binaural beats because someone told me it would induce lucid dreaming. It didn't work (I'm trying again though). I do, however, remember exactly what I dreamt about. Can you guess? Here's a hint, I was on my computer. Yep, that class I took was totally right, pornography is totally burned into our psyches. Or at least mine.

This is the happiest-sounding black metal I have ever heard. I'm basing this solely off of this first track, but the guitar here is decidedly more shoegaze than black metal, and is still less dark-sounding than a lot of shoegaze I've heard. That contrasts quite a bit with the vocals, which are decidedly more black metal than shoegaze. These are some seriously ugly vocals. Thankfully though, they're rather low in the mix so you can focus pretty easily on the guitar beautyworks here. The drums started out as blastbeats but around the halfway mark or something, they've switched to slower rock drumming. I'm pretty sure if you replaced the scratchy screamo vocals with something like cheesy love crooning and lowered the effects on the guitar just a little bit, this could pass off for a really long power ballad.

The second track is a break track which is simply some more pretty guitar lines, this time with less effects and more delicate picking patterns. Instead of talking more about this track (which I'm pretty sure will be an instrumental and is the shortest track on the album), let me look up the band history and share anything interesting.

There was absolutely nothing interesting to share. It's a group of white dudes from San Francisco. I'm not exactly disappointed, I honestly don't know what I was expecting since I definitely wasn't expecting one of those traditional black metal mythos of Norway.
These guys are way too upbeat and polished-sounding to be anything like those (plus, you know, the fact that this was released in 2010 and anyone following that scene in America would hopefully be promptly institutionalized, with all the murder and church burnings and raw meat).

This third track follows the same formula as the first track. It's more interesting to talk about the fourth track and second break track, Please Remember, because it contains the most clearly pronounced words in the intro while still being completely incomprehensible, as well as the harshest noise thus far on the album (which I think might just be a power drill) and an acoustic guitar. Sonically and compositionally this
is their most varied track yet, and it's a break track.

I had an egg cream today. It was good. If I'm going to comment any further on these long main tracks, let's see what I can say that I haven't said. The use of dynamics is... Okay. It rarely provides any shockers. Loud build-up, quiet part, back to the loud. It's nice that they provide some breaks since 10 minutes at a time of pure shrieking vocals and pretty yet harsh guitar tones would be tiring. Not much else to say there. Lyrically... Who gives a crap? The vocals don't allow for anything to be understood. If you've ever read a review of Loveless, there's a 99% chance the reviewer said something like "You can't understand the vocals at all, but that's okay because they're like another dreamy layer on top of the guitars". And if you listened to Loveless you know that's true. Here, the abrasive vocals contrast with the guitars too much to be "another layer" but are far too low in the mix to actually be abrasive. They're just... A slight hindrance. Bear in mind I don't have the most developed taste for black metal, so these vocals could totally be right up your alley. For me though, I honestly would've preferred something more guttural if we're sticking to metal, or some nice dream pop vocals. But they're too quiet for me to really care, I can still enjoy the rest of the music just fine.

With Windows, the third and final break track and sixth track overall, I can definitely see the Godspeed You! Black Emperor connections with these guys, particularly to F#A#∞ with the brooding, dark atmosphere, spoken word samples and low piano notes. Other than that, why do they get compared to these guys at all? To me they don't even sound remotely similar on the main tracks. And... I'm not commenting on the last song. It follows the same formula as the other 3 blackgaze tracks.

Well, the main 4 tracks were a bit samey overall, the vocals were not to my taste and I'm not entirely sure this album needed to be 60 minutes, but that was an album I definitely liked, and one I plan to return to to see if my opinion grows (or lowers) over time. Definitely the most accessible, polished and upbeat sounding black metal release I've ever heard. To me that is a good thing, since it adds some definite differences to a genre I'm not the biggest listener of. So, for this Pitchfork baby, did it live up to the hype? Ehh.... To a certain extent. That's better than most of their children so it's good enough for my ears.

Best Track: Dream House
Rating: 7.5/10