I’m a little amazed that Deafheaven have managed to stay so relevant and vital in the little corner of heavy music they’ve cordoned off, but they really have. The black metal fusionists surprised me completely with last year’s Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, which turned away from their former flirtations with shoegaze and post-rock to lavish their affections instead, on prog. It was a pretty self-indulgent move and one which they made shamelessly. Perhaps only a band of Deafheaven’s calibre could carry it off because the simple, obvious, even cheesy harmonies and progressions made my jaw drop both at the audacity and how unexpectedly successful they were. When I heard they were coming back to Brisbane in the company of Divide And Dissolve -a band who put out one of my other favourite records of 2019- I could hardly pass that up.
The night started really early and I actually missed the beginning of Divide And Dissolve’s set, but, it was kind of perfect to hear the haunting strains of soprano sax lilt up the stairway from the basement at Crowbar. Takiaya Reed juggles that sax along with guitar and loop pedals while Sylvie Nehill waits for just the right moment in the ambience to beat seven shades of hell out of her kit. Some of the juggling may have been a little too ‘improvised’ at moments, but the rich timbre Takiaya brings to doom and their translation of a highly unusual schtick into something that really roars on stage is no small feat. Beyond that, DnD may well be the most humorless duo in heavy music, but the themes they tackle -racism, the post-colonial experience, genocide- aren’t supposed to be funny and I don’t think they’d have it any other way. Takaiaya was utterly po-faced and nearly monotone, as she talked a little bit of politics between songs. It was, unsurprisingly, slightly uncomfortable and only got more so when she stated, matter-of-factly: “You live in one of the most racist countries in the world.” Some brains-trust in front of me piped up, “aw, Australia isn’t racist!” To her credit, Takaiaya tried to engage him in a dialogue, but he got heckled into even more uncomfortable silence before anything could happen. Some of my other favourite bands, like San Fran industrial outfit Consolidated do crowd-forums like this at their gigs. It’s never easy, it’s always awkward and confronting, but y’know what? Good on ‘em for not taking the easy way. I’ll do my bit, too: if you ever want to talk racism, you know where I am.
Deafheaven turned up on time and in businesslike fashion. They smashed through the set like a well-oiled machine, which was quite a change from the theatrics of the last Deafheaven gig I went to. This was a no-nonsense show where music was the complete focus and it was worth it. My god the sound was good. All credit to both the band and Crowbar: to hear a blackgaze band produce such a perfectly proportioned performance of their record -every element ringing out with clarity- in a concrete basement, is a bit stunning. Easing the crowd into the new stuff they started with a cut from New Bermuda before taking on a huge chunk of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. The new sound took on an oddly dual quality, shifting between monumental tracts of black metal and lilting fields of easy-going, melodic psych rock. If you were going to be unkind you could say it was like Burzum tag-teaming Blind Melon, but I didn’t dislike it all, it just felt a bit ... weird. The audience seemed completely primed for the prog. Everywhere I looked there were Baroness, Cog or Steven Wilson t-shirts, so I guess they knew what they were paying for.
Without being prejudiced I have to say my pick was not actually from the new material, but rather it was closing number Dream House, taken from Deafheaven’s breakthrough album, Sunbather. I don’t know if you’re supposed to save all your energy for the encore but it just hummed in a way that made me extremely glad I turned up. I should be used to getting surprised by Deafheaven by now, their very capacity to startle should be diminished, yet here we are. So many years after first running into black metal’s upstart fusionists the fascination never diminishes.
- Chris Cobcroft.