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INFINITE GRANITE

Spike Sidor
Deafheaven Infinite Granite Review Album Cover

DEAFHEAVEN

2021 SHOEGAZE/POST-ROCK/DREAM-POP

Infinite Granite is the fifth album from former American black metal titans Deafheaven. It doesn’t feel that long ago since Deafheaven swept the underground (myself included) off its feet with their sophomore effort Sunbather. In actuality eight years is a long time and the band is barely recognizable. They’ve taken their sound from an enthralling fusion of black metal and dopamine laden post-rock, to simplifying their structures and mixing in power-pop on their last release. Now they are a generic shoegaze band, no joke. Sure, they retain a portion of their crescendo-core roots but the stylistic leap is jarring. The lighter bits have a breezier quality à la dream-pop and the heavier climaxes alternate between mediocre riffs doused in reverb to hide their blandness and quick metal infused trysts that feel as well earned as a CEO’s golden parachute. As you would expect they can’t keep the wretched vocal delivery if they want to fit in with all the other kids so now there are dime-a-dozen cleans that you could lose in a crowd of two, with the occasional nostalgic guest appearance from screams on aforementioned metal digressions.

There is nothing wrong with a band changing their style, evolution is the expectation but Deafheaven show up with nary a compelling quality on Infinite Granite. The opener, Shellstar, sets up what you are going to be fed for the next fifty minutes. Twinkling guitars and velvety vocals build slowly to an ineffectual chorus and instrumental peaks with the largest occurring near the piece’s finish. The lyrics are a lousy attempt at vague poetry but are usually barely intelligible underneath the effects making it hard to care about them other than the additional sonic texture they bring to a track. You can reread the past couple sentences for every song, deviations are noted as follows.

The lead single Great Mass of Color ends with a sprinkling of screamed vocals and riffs that are more reminiscent of death metal than black, still doesn’t do anything for the enjoyability. The track immediately after is a spacey interlude which is weird, the regular tracks are so light that it doesn’t serve as a break for the sake of ear fatigue nor does it provide an interesting change of pace. The last minute of Villain brings back the black metal to no payoff, you get the feeling the moment is supposed to feel “epic” but it passes without a fuss like much of the listing. The Gnashing changes it up by starting heavy, that’s it, as unremarkable as any prior permutation. And finally the closer Mombasa is the regular formula but longer, boring shoegaze build, into boring metal peak, into whole-ass boring song.

On my first listen of Infinite Granite I barely had an opinion on it. The reason for this is the album’s most significant quality, intense forgettability. I wish it had anything standout, even if it was horrible because at least it would bring memorability. Where Deafheaven go from here is a mystery, swap all the genres you like, when your songwriting is nose-diving a good album will not take shape. 

3/10

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