Ordinary Corrupt Human Love - A Reminder As to Why music Matters
In our modern day, with music being so accessible and easy for anyone to make, I reckon people have forgotten the true art form that a good album could be. With our shortened attention span, all it takes for us is 10 seconds to decide whether we like a song or not, immediately skipping onto the next one, cutting and pasting bits we don’t like, forgetting how not so long ago a CD or cassette, hell even a vinyl for all you hipsters, was meant to be put on, all distractions rid of and then silently absorbed in its entirety. An album is meant to be a story, taking the listener on a journey through the mind of the artist, where upon coming out the other side one should have the rewarding feeling similar to just having watched a great film or finished a good book. Today, Friday the 13th no less, marks the official release of Deafheaven’s ‘Ordinary Corrupt Human Love’. And my god, what authors have they become.
Their first full album ‘Sunbather’ was one of the best debuts that I have seen from a band in a long time and I would not be surprised if it remained many fans’ favourite as it instantly trademarked their sound and placed themselves on the radar of a lot of great bands. Their follow-up E.P. two years later ‘New Bermuda’ seemed as if it was slightly less appreciated but to me it was a step in a direction I enjoyed, and I thought then if their next album is going to be anything like ‘Come Back’ or ‘Luna’ from that E.P. then it would be worth the wait. Well, here we are 3 years later.
If you are not familiar with Deafheaven’s sound, it is pretty hard to describe with words or other genres and if I had to give them a label it would sit somewhere between hipster-ish black metal, post-rock and shoegaze, with a healthy mix of blues and rock ’n’ roll. Fairly bizarre as it may be, the truth is that words simply don’t do them justice. The pure whirlwind of crushing emotion that their music creates is something one has to experience for themselves and as with all great things, words simply diminish it, however you’re still here so I will do my best with the review in the meantime.
The album starts off with possibly their softest track the listener has heard from them ‘You Without End’. After an intro of comforting wave sounds which the listener might be suspecting to be lured into something heavy proceeding, it does the complete opposite, shifting into a beautiful piano melody giving the listeners a different kind of startle as this is the first time in their entire discography a piano has been used and yet it fits their sound extremely well. Other sounds start fading in to the track, a clean slide guitar complementing the piano, slow drums and a recording of a woman talking soon to be replaced by the vocalist.
This song is definitely very different from the previous work as it at no point screams “heavy” or “metal” in your face like a lot of their other songs, making it a great opening for this album as it sends a message that it could be anything and the listeners should not expect it to sound the same as their previous records.
The album then fades into the quiet, comforting lo-fi cassette noises, signalling the start of the second track ‘Honeycomb’. Don’t let the soft opening fool you, this song is one of the longest and possibly most punishing ones in the album but after over 7 minutes of chaos, filled with intense death metal blast beats and black metal style tremolo picking with dissonant guitar chords, anyone left alive is rewarded with a rather unexpected bluesy solo and shortly after, 4 minutes of bliss to close off the song, as clean guitars take over and transports the listener up to the clouds into shoegaze heaven. Incidentally, this song was the first single to be released from the album and has a beautiful video to go with it- worth watching.
After the soft ending of the second track the album flows into the sparkly clean intro of the second single of the album ‘Canary Yellow’. Featuring one of the longest clean intros of the album, it is while listening to it that I realised one of the secret ingredients that makes their records so damn amazing. Which is the analogue vibe of the recoding, giving everything that you hear a nostalgic feel, reminiscent of old 90’s records, and bands like Mogwai and Nirvana. After two and a half minutes of clean guitars the full band comes in, in a true Deafheaven fashion, however the music is not quite as intense or aggressive as in the previous track but is softer, almost playful despite featuring screaming vocals and distorted guitars. It has more upbeat drums and less gloomy chord progressions, almost as if signalling to the listener that the band can turn it up to 100 at any point but are refraining from doing so. This song also carries on the Honeycomb’s lyrical mentions of flowers but whereas in Honeycomb the flowers signify a dark image with lyrics like “hung from the throat by sunflower stems”, Canary Yellow creates a gentler image with the lyrics and music, especially the huge chanted vocals at the end, as if to signify opening up to the world and nature in a peaceful resolution rather than getting claustrophobically choked up on it, as the last song seemed to suggest.
The chanted vocals fade out into clean guitars of the next track ‘Near’. This song showcases my love for Deafheaven’s guitar work, for as many clean sections as this album has, they all sound vastly different with the guitar textures being unique on each track. Where as the intro on ‘Canary Yellow’ had a plinky, clean, shimmering tone, this one is much rounder and full of luscious reverb, painting a picture of standing in a big tall building, like a church, and drifting away to this song. This track is reminiscent of the intro to the album with its slow and drifting feel and clean vocals. I like to think of it as something of a short, peaceful waypoint between the last 2 intense songs and the things still to come from the rest of the album.
The next track ‘Glint’ then kicks off with yet another beautiful clean guitar intro with some reverse delay giving it a slightly haunting feel. After over 2 minutes of anticipation, not to mention the last soft track, the band finally all come in with their signature witchy screams, tremolo picked chords and driving drums, signalling that we are in for another intense track. Whereas a lot of the previous songs were all experimental at some point and different from their previous work, ‘Glint’ to me is classic Deafheaven and damn if it ain’t great. Featuring a bluesy solo, reminiscent of the one in ‘Honeycomb’, clean interludes and the pull-push dynamic on the drums they are known for, creating tension and then gloriously releasing it, perhaps coupled with a screech or two this song is like coming home for a fan and is very comforting in its own way. This song also features classic Deafheaven’s beautifully poetic lyrics and once again mentions flowers, in this song portraying calmness through chamomiles.
After that comfortable last song, the album fades, yet again, into something completely different and unexpected. ‘Night People’ starts with a piano riff and an electric-sounding kick drum making the whole thing feel like an 80’s ballad. Clean vocals that sound like a duet then come in, accompanied by a raspy lead guitar, intensifying the 80’s ballad feel. The full drums come in shortly after kicking in the song into next level, sending shivers down listeners spines that even the opening track of the album did not prepare them for. This song was placed perfectly within the album as the last song put the listeners in such a comfortable place, being such a typical Deafheaven track, and then as the album is in the home stretch with only two tracks left, Deafheaven drop this sneaky plot twist in and even though there were clues along the way as to how much their sound had really changed I don’t think anyone was prepared for this glorious gem of a track.
With only one song left, the listener might be feeling something similar to being near the end of a book with a good story, especially after that last track will have them confused, intrigued and have no idea how it’s going to end. This is where Deafheaven have the power as they could really end this in any way they wanted as they have shown the insane diversity in their sound throughout the album. ‘Worthless Animal’ starts off with another clean guitar intro and growling vocals come in, with no distorted guitars, not giving away too much at this point. The band soon kick it up a notch and continue with a more traditional sound, taking the listener on a comforting road after all the twists and turns they took with the previous tracks.
The overall feel of this track is quite weary as it’s more downtempo and not as aggressive as some of the other tracks, making it feel like coming home from the long road and is as perfect for a last song as could be. As all the instruments eventually fade out the listener is left only with the sound of waves, taking them full circle, right back to the beginning of this journey.
