Welcome to the latest edition of “Freeloader” in which we review albums that you don’t have to feel like a douche for downloading for free. Today Satan Rosenbloom checks out the latest from Deafheaven.

Black metal is a music of destruction, but not as an end in itself. Just as devastating fires are necessary to maintain the evolution of a forest, the outsized musical gestures and inflammatory rhetoric of black metal are aimed at razing the world so that we may begin anew. Strange, then, that it’s only been in the last five years or so that we’ve seen black metal sprouting so many new branches. It’s a sad irony that a music so opposed to orthodoxy should be so concerned with notions of purity.

San Francisco’s Deafheaven are one of a growing legion of young American black metal bands (also including Krallice, Velnias and Liturgy) whose music captures that duality perfectly. There’s plenty of violence in the outpouring of blastbeats and guitars on their self-titled demo (briefly introduced by Vince here), but the violence feels transformative, baptismal, even comforting. Deafheaven’s arcing guitar harmonies lead to conventionally beautiful places; they even fly directly into the sun for the major key flashes of “Daedalus.” It says a lot that the acoustic instrumental “Bedrooms” feels totally at home among the beautiful carnage that surrounds it. It’s just as emotionally complete as the louder tracks.

While Deafheaven’s music shares surface characteristics with the classic black metal sound, this demo is so distanced from Mayhem and Immortal as to be another kind of music entirely. It engulfs rather than tramples, shimmers where so much black metal rattles. These descriptions alone do not make Deafheaven good or bad. But they do amount to an important shift in aesthetic values, one that makes black metal more listenable without taming its spiritual thrust. It’s a shift that has clear predecessors in Weakling, Wolves In the Throne Room and Agalloch. Do Deafheaven offer a take on this strain of black metal that the others don’t? Not really, though they do streamline the sound a bit. Do they offer that same feeling of cleansing that I get when I listen to the aforementioned? Oh, yeah.

(3.5 Horns Up)

-SR

Download Deafheaven’s demo over yonder.

Alcest’s new album, Écailles De Lune so relaxing to listen to… it’s like an aural tongue massage. Even when there’s screaming, it’s, like, the most mellow screaming ever. In fact, I’m making a MetalSucks Mansion Monkey rub my shoulders while we crank it right now. He offered to add the tongue massage part, but even I have standards.

ANYWAY, I’ve never seen Alcest live before, but I’ll get my chance in the spring, when they come to North America for a string of dates. I expect it to be the most chill show I attend all year. There’s also gonna be a string of various excellent bands playing support: Velnias, Liturgy, Clad In Darkness, Woe, Monarque, and Have A Nice Life

Dates after le saut:

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We loved the last tour blog that Bison B.C.’s Dan And did for us so much, we’re only all-too-happy to present another! Below, please enjoy part 2; you can read part 1 here.

Sep 28 ’09 (Albuquerque NM @ Launch Pad)

The first thing that struck me about this venue was the framed posters that line the walls… Melvins, High on Fire, Fu Manchu… some killer bands have been through here over the years. I was also struck by how nice and clean Albuquerque seemed. I would later find out that the town is ranked in the top five for violent crimes in the US. Okay then, never mind.

Played with a rad band called Roñoso. Weirdest guitar tone ever but it totally worked in their crust-saw sound. Kylesa sounds fucking huge tonight. Their (hilarious) sound guy Dave is working the system like it owes him money… and it probably does.

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