“This is their worst album yet and the band really truly does put their worst foot forward with the opening track “You Without End” which is aesthetically the worst combination of ideas I’ve hear all year. One: super plain and cheap synth piano arpeggios, cheesy glam guitar soloing. The band’s typical retched vocals which the performance of are Ok, but in this instrumental backdrop, it sounds completely out of place. The overly triumphant chord progression, the generic Post-Rock passages, the ridiculously melodramatic spoken words bits on this thing, all of that combined with the seven minutes runtime of this song makes it absolute torture.
DEAFHEAVEN was once an exciting band because of their ability to creatively bring together these seemingly different genres of music in such a way. Their combination seems seamless and also through their production, through their compositional abilities, displayed a deep and passionate knowledge for these respective styles of music too. Now they’re presenting as the opening track of this record is just a corny combination of a popery pastiche just lazily slapped together and expecting the audience to just drool over just because, well, “What a bunch of weird quirky stuff! We never heard on the same track before! Why!” Thankfully, the following cuts are nearly as much of an aesthetic nightmare.”
Anthony Fantano - TheNeedleDrop
NO! This song doesn’t pretend, I think, to be something innovative, experimental or original. On the contrary, this piano melody associated with a string bending guitar is inherited from a PINK FLOYD classic. Something both elegant and reassuring, then, there is a crescendo towards a more epic atmosphere. A pleasant surprise, is the contrast between this spoken words red by actress Nadia KURY opposed to the angry, feline voice of George CLARKE. The epic crescendo, is one of the most identifiable aspects of the Post-Rock style (MOGWAI, EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY, OCEANSIZE, etc.). Like all emerging styles in music, this one has been pushed to its extreme by its creators and their followers. With pieces sometimes deliberately too long, too dense, indigestible. This is not specific to Post-Rock. But in the meantime, this style has been integrated and mixed with others, resulting in interesting combinations. There, we have a piece of a finally very classic rock with some touches of Post-Rock a Dream Pop voice associated with a Black Metal voice, a little Shoegaze atmosphere to spread some labels on it.
DEAFHEAVEN is originally a band, "in opposition". Dark Metal? Does not matter. There, the band aspires to some conventional rest by writing an elegant piece. For their pleasure? To attract a larger audience, doesn’t matter. It made some on us angry, it will delight some others.
I must admit I liked this piece at first listen - which means that I'll get bored maybe faster? So I listened a lot more DEAFHEAVEN, I'm not totally a fan but the few songs put in my favorites excited me: as the epic "Brought to the Water".
areudirty
vaporwave
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
theartofmadeline