Under the Californian sun, it’s hard to believe that black metal could be the ideal soundtrack to any kind of summer solitude. Yet that’s the paradox of Lonely People With Power, an album that reaffirms Deafheaven’s place after a series of opuses that amounted to an identity crisis for the American quintet.
After revolutionizing the codes of black metal on Sunbather (2013), an album as lauded as it was controversial, Deafheaven have sometimes tried to confirm their status as a metal band, and sometimes tried to distance themselves completely from this scene. While New Bermuda (2015) featured a heavier album packed with Slayer-style riffs, this was completely abandoned on the shoegaze-ridden and unloved Infinite Granite (2021). Instead, on their new opus, the band achieves a synthesis of everything they’ve wanted to be over the years. And the formula works very well, even if it may seem a little redundant after the hour and a bit of Lonely People with Power.
The heart of the record is made up of highly aggressive tracks featuring tremolo riffs supported by incessant blast beats from the drums. What gives Deafheaven its distinctive color is a play of clairobscur that blurs melancholy and hope in the choice of hammered chords. The result is the abrasive texture of a genre that cut its teeth in the icy Norway of the 1990s, but with warmer colors and a refreshing aura of lightness. The problem here is that the tracks blend into one another, offering little that’s new from Sunbather. Where the texture diversifies, it’s mainly during the interludes (Incidental I, II and III), where the voices of Boy Harsher and Interpol are invited to experiment more freely. Length is offset by the penultimate piece, the epic Winona, which could well have served as the finale.
In short, it’s clear that Deafheaven have come to terms with their identity, which is inevitably linked to the impact Sunbather has had on the recent evolution of metal. Lonely People with Power may not carry the same weight, but the album does honourably rise to the challenge of following in the footsteps of an indestructible cultural object.
