Beauty in the beast: The joys of Deafheaven's sonic paradox

I'll admit it: I'm not typically drawn to the thunderous chaos of metal.

- Sanjoy Narayan

I'll admit it: I'm not typically drawn to the thunderous chaos of metal. This might seem odd coming from someone who has lived for nine years in Finland, a country that produces more metal bands per capita than almost anywhere else on earth. While my Nordic compatriots have given the world Nightwish, Children of Bodom and countless other such legends, the genre's reputation for unrelenting aggression has always felt more like an endurance test than musical enjoyment.

So, some years ago, when a friend insisted I try a genre called blackgaze, I was skeptical. Then I heard Deafheaven's Sunbather (2013), and suddenly everything I thought I knew about heavy metal was turned upside-down.

Deafheaven, a San Francisco band that emerged in 2010, has just released its sixth album, Lonely People with Power, which makes this a good time to examine how they became one of the most fascinating paradoxes in contemporary music.

Their latest, released on March 28 via Roadrunner Records, marks what critics are calling a triumphant return to their black-gaze roots, after 2021's more shoegaze-leaning Infinite Granite. (Shoegaze is a genre in which the sounds of different instruments and vocals are dreamily blurred; blackgaze blends this with elements of black metal, a more-aggressive sub-genre of heavy metal.)