Where bought?: I kept asking if they were going to get it in Rise in Worcester when I lived there but nobody took the bloody hint so I got it in Bristol, probably from Fopp.
Conceived of as 'the more metal' follow-up to Sunbather which is partly true in that there is a greater quotient of tugboat-pulling muted chugging and strident wind-smeared rifferama. But there's also some other colours in there too, which is why it doesn't feel like a defensive 'no we're metal actually' record at all.
One of those other ideas in there came out in the pre-album single 'From the Kettle Onto the Coil' (which really should be on the record, it absolutely slays) which compressed their metal sections into a shorter burst and added a solo that sounded weirdly like Oasis' 'Live Forever'. It shouldn't work but it totally did and built in a weird levity that didn't tip over into bathos.
New Bermuda dulls the production shine down a little so it is like a politer version of Coalesce's grinding pig-iron guitars or Converge's byzantine trap of analogue mayhem. It really helps the songs - not that they're bad - in terms of making impact on a musical level. It would have been really easy to get into the arms race of brickwalling the fuck out of this to sound impressive on a facile level. But they don't, so they sound just as great playing piano as they do forte (or fff).
No interstitial tracks here - 5 tracks at 45 minutes - but there are moments built into most songs to cleanse the palate like the twinkly piano at the end of 'Brought to the Water' calming the scene before 'Luna' chugs in with a headhunter of an opening. Your mileage may vary (especially if you're a diehard metaller) with 'Baby Blue' landing somewhere between cock rock and Britpop before going into its metal thrustings, but it works for me. 'Come Back' echoes the second GY!BE record before plunging headlong into maybe their best work to date; the kind of tumult that Emperor were hoping to capture but could never manage lest their professionalism be ruffled.
One of my personal songwriting challenges that I always strive to overcome is not the writing of any particular section, but the fusing together of separate sections in an appealing way. That is what Deafheaven mastered on Sunbather and get mostly right here. A 10 minute track will take twists and turns not quite as deep or complex as a classical piece, but they do often feel linear as such, only occasionally returning to themes to repeat them in the manner of a chorus. Perhaps this became their downfall on later records (as much as the slightly watery recordings) but here it gives them a sense of purpose and heightened power; that they can pick up something incredible and discard it knowing they can do it again and again.
On balance I prefer Sunbather but a fresh listen to this has been rewarding.
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