I think the last section is a big payoff mainly if you've listened the entire album, it recaps some chord progressions used in earlier tracks and its somewhat emotional, not my favorite band or genre, but I kinda like it
The payoff is the release at 8:42 after the ambient section that begins at 5:06, which brings you down from the pure aggression that hits you straight out the gates. The track before it on the album (Windows) is an interlude with voice samples and sets the tone perfectly for The Pecan Tree. From 8:42 George screams “I am my fathers son, I am no one, I cannot love, it’s in my blood.” If that line hits home this song stays with you forever, pure anger and catharsis for many of us who this resonates with. As a fellow composer and songwriter, it’s my opinion that the emotive purpose of this tune was most definitely fulfilled, the perfect ending to an exceptional album.
"I thought Deaheaven were post-rock, but this is black metal." It's both, with a dash of woozy shoegaze. Would love to get your reaction to their song "Glint".
I just discovered this band on tour with Coheed and Cambria. This song just inspired me to write my first poem in 20 years based on how the musical arrangement made me feel and what it made me think of. Love Deafheaven !!
The lyrics being about the absence of a father figure and the fact that he realized that he's exactly like his father makes this song soooo hard hitting. That's probably why that album and song are my favorites. "I'm am my fathers son, I am no one, I cannot love, it's in my blood.."
There have been enough shoegaze/black metal fusion bands at this point to warrant a "Blackgaze" label for bands like this. Saw Deafheaven live like 3 times -- good band.
Still Blackgaze :D Starting out with more black metal I'd say there was then a section of typical shoegaze at around 1:30. And, sure, some post metal parts later on.
This song was an admittedly weird one for the theme, but now that things happened anyway I think it's fair to say the song itself is somewhat of a payoff for the entire journey of the album, which is something that requires a closer look on the entire thing to appreciate. But in an enclosure on itself, I kinda believe the melodic and quieter part on the middle and ending is a payoff in some way to the black initial minutes, in a sense that it feels rewarding by relieving the listener after the brutal aggression of the starting sound, and progressing with this buildup of a nicer, more heartfelt and emotional atmosphere. That's my personal take tho. Also a matter of opinion, but I didn't exactly thought the melodic part sounded optimistic before you pointed it out and yeah, I kinda see it. For me tho it was always very melancholic, not sad exactly but in a grey area in between where positivity is somewhat far away but visible, and it's uncertain what's to feel but something is felt. Don't know how that ties in with the lyrics tho.
I know Sunbather is THE album from Deafheaven and defining album in blackgaze overall (with Alcest's albums) but you should check something out of their last blackgaze album Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. I consider it as good as Sunbather and tracks like Canary Yellow and Honeycomb are toptier Deafheaven tracks.
I think Sunbather is the more important album, but Ordinary Corrupt is actually a better album in my opinion. Glint is perhaps the best song they've ever done, although Mombasa is giving it a run for it's money for me lately.
Frankly, I was so mind-blown by the sonic qualities of the Sunbather album that I never really read any of the song lyrics ( including the next album ) It is some serious music for some seriously moody people, I would say jokingly but truly I agree with your stance that atmosphere, ambiance, aggressive and visceral form of art are the primary attractions in Deafheaven and I absolutely adore that. They know how to hit the spot and when they do it's soul-crushingly heavy. The reason why I wound up never reading the lyrics is because I enjoy the vocals as a textural layer above the crazy music. It sits well for me in every segment. In a sense, I dare say, the vocals were done rather tastefuly despite there being no change in quality but the nuance in articulation is very effective. The way I interpret this particular song is indeed a 3-part piece where the parts are " I am upset" , "Contemplation" and "Acceptance" respectfully in that order. I think this is confirmed by your commentary on the final segment where the phrase "I am my father's son..." is repeated. I'm still not fond of the idea of readiing the lyrics 'cos I kinda like my own interpretation of the music and heck, the band surely knows that the words are practically impossible to make out on listening casually so I feel that whether they care about peoole reading their lyrics or not they have expressed very effectively the emotions and experiences through the music. Sunbather feels very real and true and I think that's doubly important to the band.
Yeah, I agree with you that I don't really see the pay off here. Generally, I'm not a huge fan of Deafheaven. I like some few of their tracks, the ones that actually goes somewhere and has some nice melodies that isn't just dragged out, and there's some few of those and those are really nice.
I was so confused when this album came out and met with such mainstream critical praise; it was basically standard BM mixed with standard shoegaze, but I guess the latter inclusion alone was enough to make critics that normally ignore BM to pay attention. Still, even within the niche of blackgaze Alcest did it first and, IMO, did/does it much better than Deafhaven. For Deafheaven I actually prefer to their later more post-rock/shoegaze offerings. None of this is to say I find this song/album/band terrible or anything, but I do think it's one of those cases of a band inadvertently stealing the spotlight from another band that was more deserving. In this case, it's probably due to nationality more than anything, with Deafheaven being American and Alcest being French.
Post-Metal and post-rock are similar in terms of their focus on atmosphere, but post-metal is much heavier and was massively influenced by sludge metal. Think Cult of Luna as one of the quintessential post-metal bands. Post-rock tends to be much more chill. Still atmospheric and often repetitive, but their soundscapes tend to be less aggressive (less distortion, less dissonance/harshness, etc.).
