On first listen, it’s tempting to hear Lonely People With Power as a course correction—or even a retreat. Deafheaven’s fifth album, the tuneful Infinite Granite, turned the band’s carefully constructed aesthetic on its head; it sits in their discography like a polished gem in a crate of jagged boulders. It was a big swing for a group once renowned for its overwhelming power, and a keen observer might have noticed that rooms on the Infinite Granite tour were a bit emptier, and praise from critics a little more measured. Performing live, vocalist George Clarke had long appeared superhuman, but as a singer, he sometimes lost his footing. It was all a bit humbling for a band that had seemed invincible ever since dropping its genre-exploding breakthrough.
Lonely People With Power marks a return to Deafheaven’s comfort zone: tortured screams, blast beats, songs that build toward crescendos like 747s lifting off the runway. On the surface, it most resembles New Bermuda, the dark, muscular album where Deafheaven sought to bolster their metal bona fides. But on Lonely People With Power, they’re in a very different headspace. Many of the tracks here consolidate their strengths in search of a hybrid approach—a way to integrate, rather than reject the brighter sounds of Infinite Granite. While the song structures are arguably their most pop-oriented to date (eight of the 12 songs clock in at under six minutes—bite-sized, by Deafheaven standards), some of the sounds and themes rank among the most confrontational in the band’s discography. This might be the first Deafheaven record that doesn’t significantly rework the formula, but even so, the band can’t help but eye new terrain.
Like most Deafheaven records, Lonely People With Power opens thunderously. Following a brief, atmospheric intro, “Doberman” charges out of the gate with a relentless beat and compresses the band’s many talents—wandering basslines, EBow atmospherics, wanton shredding—into an unusually tight package. “Magnolia” is Deafheaven for actual metalheads: four straight minutes of crash-cymbal hits and palm-muted guitars with no pretty parts to speak of. “The Garden Route” plays like an Ordinary Corrupt Human Love outtake, layering Clarke’s growling voice over an expanse of clean, ringing guitars.
With the fan service out of the way, “Heathen” tries something new: tempering the dark pop of Infinite Granite with heavy yet anthemic choruses. The song finds a satisfying balance before locking into a lumbering groove in its final section; as the tempo quickens, Clarke lets his voice stretch out over each word, adding as much texture to the music as Kerry McCoy and Shiv Mehra’s dreamy washes of guitar. As an assertion of strengths that expands their dynamic range, “Heathen” feels miles ahead of anything on Infinite Granite.
