Metal music has always been crafted to hit you directly in the chest, with a perfectly aligned chord that pierces through the speakers and sticks to the bottled-up aggression most people carry with them. Like the finishing move in a fighting game, there is a violent, celebratory poetry that cuts through the stereotypical wall of sound and uplifts the listener out of the same bleakness that is evoked when the genre is consumed on a surface level. The storied genre is home to many iconic albums that broke through the barriers of metal and simply became terrific music enjoyed by all. No longer do metalheads need to be reduced to moody cartoon characters of the artist they admire; metal is everywhere, and it is evolving at a fantastic rate.
Deafheaven is just one example of a modern metal provocateur that emerged to shape the new generation of the genre, implementing sinfully sweet, shoegaze-style melodies to their harrowing bellows and guttural guitars. It is too early to say which albums will define this new generation of metal, especially when Deafheaven continues to evolve, but for the West Coast-bred five-piece powerhouse, one release towers above the rest as a defining moment for the band. New Bermuda, the band’s third album, was released on October 2, 2015, and Deafheaven’s singular sound was solidified. The band’s meticulous blend of eerie metal and lush shoegaze came to life across the five spellbinding tunes that make up this 46-minute listen, cementing the young band as innovators seeking to explode metal from within while keeping a caring eye on its traditions.
New Bermuda was recorded simultaneously with the band’s sophomore effort, Sunbather, in 2015, with engineer Jack Shirley, making the artistic leap between the two even more impressive. The growing pains of Deafheaven’s second album were smoothed over, and listening to both back to back paints a beautiful picture of fearless creativity. Even on its own, though, New Bermuda would carry the impact it continues to have on metal. The band not only landed on a formula they can call their own, but they had already begun manipulating it, restructuring its DNA to explore the barriers of this new landscape. The results are a sprawling effort that skyrockets Deafheaven past the notion of being typical metal revivalists.
Deafheaven proved their raw metal prowess on moments like “Brought to the Water” and “Luna,” but even in these nods to their forefathers, the band maintains its newfound individuality. Even at their most heart-racing, George Clark’s vocal performances maintain a dreamlike effect, creating an enticing sonic conflict between the pounding drums and the hauntingly stunning vocals. Deafheaven challenged their new sound on songs like the warping “Baby Blue,” which seamlessly transitions from ethereal guitars to dark, chugging tempos.
Much like other genre-breaking metal albums that came before it, critics from across the musical spectrum sang praises for New Bermuda. Spin named it the best metal album of 2015, while it landed at 10 on Stereogum’s 50 Best Albums of 2015 list, and 26 on Pitchfork’s top 50. With a sound that redefined what metal could be in the new age and the fearlessness to morph this adolescent sonic landscape into even deeper levels of nuanced fusion, Deafheaven etched their names into the metal history books with New Bermuda.
