News / / 11.11.13

DEAFHEAVEN

Birthdays, Dalston | November 8th

The fact that we literally cannot give away a ticket for this, the second of two sold out London shows by the band inarguably responsible for 2013’s most breathtaking extreme metal record (The Body who?) does, in part, put paid a little to the ever ubiquitous, dunderheaded notions that black metal (or Deafheaven’s lush amalgam in any case) has become ‘accessible’, or some sort of yuppie buzz word, bandied about for fly-by-night hipsters actively oblivious to the seedy machinations of Le Legions Noire or the wider Scando hot bed of the 90s. That part of the crowd at Dalston’s Birthdays (yes, we know…) is the conspicuous minority; this as much an uncynical, and male, crowd as we’ve seen at a gig since Wolves In The Throne Room last rolled through town.

But first, the most Australian-looking band we’ve seen in some time, Sacramento’s Weekend, fine purveyors of noisy, post-punk with a certain pop sensibility. Their set is great. Great! Not that we had low expectations per se, but their choice as an opening act seems as incongruous as their placement on the Slumberland roster, what with the label commonly being known for fuzzy, floppy-haired Black Tambourine-enthusiasts. Low-key no wave and psych signifiers abound in writing on the band, but live they sound closer to a blown out Pains of Being Pure At Heart or Now It’s Overhead with the volume cranked and the studio sheen removed, all woozy layers of weighty fuzz and sampled noise. Mirror and End Times are particularly effective examples, but the too-short thirty minutes allotted—kowtowed abruptly and somewhat anticlimactically by the sound desk—is consistently excellent.

Appearing on stage to swathes of noise and feedback, Deafheaven’s no-frills set up seriously belies the grace and power of what they imminently deliver. Essentially playing this year’s soon-to-be-classic Sunbather in full (give or take a couple of the ambient interludes) with an encore of Unrequited from their debut Roads to Judah. The set is a relentless, 100 per cent satisfying exercise in pummelling bluster and climactic evocation. Dream House, The Pecan Tree and the aforementioned Judah cut are the inevitable highlights (the latter exemplifying just how far the band’s songwriting has progressed, and in that emphasising just how startlingly good it now is), but it’s all pretty much faultless. Aside from the effect of the P.A’s slightly muddy mid-range – which renders the blastbeats into a rather flat drone at times – the sound is an elative, enveloping mass, far transcending the high-end grind of much black metal. The band still ostensibly the duo of Kerry McCoy and George Clarke – but bolstered now in to a semi-concrete five piece – remain fairly static throughout, with the exception of Clarke, whose intense glaring and florid gesturing give him the air of a Lovecraftian conductor, though the waves of noise are more than engaging enough than to require any supplementary visual histrionics. Band of the year, no doubt. Fuck the haters, man.

 

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deafheaven.com

Words: Tom Howells

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