Deafheaven
New Bermuda (ANTI-)
From the opening notes of Deafheaven’s New Bermuda – with the ringing church bells and bludgeoning beats that open “Brought to the Water” – it could be easy to dismiss this as little more than cliched death metal. After all, the requisite hallmarks of the genre are all here: the incomprehensible lyrics, the pummelling double-kick, the palm-muted power chords.
However, it takes the band mere minutes to reveal that they will not be creatively constrained by the trappings of their genre. Noise gives way to melody, and the pulverizing drums open up to punctuate an anthemic refrain that wouldn’t sound out of place on one of At The Drive In’s later albums.
The five songs that comprise New Bermuda clock in at just under 47 minutes and largely eschew any kind of traditional verse-chorus-verse format, each instead building to crescendo before moving to diminuendo and then to coda. These are dynamic, anthemic metal masterpieces that completely transcend the genre. But there’s nothing Wagnerian about the songs on New Bermuda: these are metal epics, but they are nuanced.
“Baby Blue” starts off with delicate David Gilmour-esque guitar work, slowing building until it climaxes three-and-a-half minutes in with an unholy roar. “Gifts From the Earth” begins as a Sunny Day Real Estate song sung by the devil himself punctuated by the requisite metal shredding only to finish with acoustic guitars and piano seemingly stolen from an Oasis album. The end result is something that is both violent and delicate, furious and melancholy.
Much like Mastodon’s 2004 album Leviathan, Deafheaven’s New Bermuda has the potential to crossover and find an audience with non-metal fans. In doing so, it too will become a gateway drug for an entirely new generation of metal fans.
Rating: ★★★★ (out of five)
