Deafheaven-Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
-album review-
The album represents the fourth musical effort of the band and it was released in 2018.The opener on this album is represented by “You without end”, which gives a very indie vibe, the shoegaze element is also present and over all it has a very nostalgic feeling, in my opinion is a very suiting road-song, as I was giving it the first listen I could’ve already picture myself distancing along the asphalt road during sunset. “Honeycomb” is the second track on this album and it’s the one that stands out the most on this LP. The intro sucks you in right off the bat, it has some very interesting passages along the way, the dreamy vibe is omnipresent but it doesn’t distance itself from the black metal element, but like all tracks on this material I would not recommend it to purists or those who are not into experimental projects. “Canary Yellow” has a very strong post-metal vibe initially, the core of the song is kind of an overkill in my opinion but the few dark passages intertwined in the middle kind of salvage the song, also I sensed a grunge influenced vibe by the acoustic progression that’s present on the track. ”Near” represents the 4th song of the album, and I believe it has the heaviest shoegaze influence, at some point it even reminded me of Cigarettes After Sex, as a whole is a pretty mellow song. “Glint” got me bopping my head a little, it’s a pretty catchy effort and it brings the album closer to a black metal vibe then the rest of the tracks. “Night People” was an interesting listen, especially given the fact that Chelsea Wolfe is featured on this song. The last track on this album is “Worthless Animal” , I think this is the darkest song in terms of musical structure and also lyrically(but I will get to that later), it borrows from DSBM in terms of vibe and the impending doom feeling that it gives makes it a good close up track.
Lyrically, I find it a bit of a bore, besides “You without end” that really took me visually there(enhanced by the spoken word passages) and “Honeycomb” , the songs tend to put too much emphasis on the post-metal repetitive style hooks, the excessive use of metaphors is all alright at the beginning but it kind of lets you down because it fails to immerse the listener very deeply on some of the tracks, but then again I tried to understand the bands lyrical approach in terms of the shoegaze element, when you no longer have a classic type extreme metal vocals and the singer becomes one with the instruments.
In terms of production it seemed pretty decent, no complaints on that to be honest, but I was expecting something more from this album. “Sunbather” was their best effort so far and this stands out the most between all their four materials and I would recommend it more to someone who wants to get into this guys the first time.
“Ordinary Corrupt Human Love” is an unique material nonetheless, I would not consider that it failed to deliver per-se, definitely not a bad listen, but I feel is still room for improvement.