Jord

After watching Deafheaven’s latest album splat onto the pavement in front of me, I was feeling a bit discouraged about the metal scene in general. This album, fortunately, accomplishes what I was hoping that Deafheaven would do.

The singer shrieks like a hawk just as well as George Clarke. He’s shrieking Danish instead of English, but the lyrics are never comprehensible, so who cares. On the latest Deafheaven release, many of the post-rock intervals were self-indulgent and needed to be edited down. On this album, the post-rock intervals are quite short, and they feel like moments of catharsis after the vocalist’s searing intensity.

“Penumbra” is the track to listen to. It has moments of intensity, moments of calm, and ends with an awe-inspiring onrush of fury. I’ve listened to the transition at 4:25 countless times. The final track, “Jord,” also captures the imagination. Halfway through, instead of erupting into a ball of rage as I expected, it entered a propulsive and beautiful guitar melody. (The ball of rage arrived a minute later, so I wasn’t disappointed.)