Deafheaven
– Lonely People with Power
Lonely People with Power feels like the sound of grief grabbing the reins and driving forward at breakneck speed. George Clark’s guitar isn’t just loud—it bleeds. His interplay with Daniel Tracy’s drums builds tension with the feel of tectonic plates grinding beneath your feet. This is music that demands attention, not permission.
Best of…
This album thrives on friction. Vocal lines race between sorrow and rage, not aiming to soothe but to wound and illuminate. And yet, there are moments of haunting beauty—strings, clean passages, a breath before the plunge. They offer reprieve, not redemption. Deafheaven doesn’t resolve the tension. They expose it, hold it up, and stare until it turns bright.
This record isn’t about crescendos. It’s about collapse and repair. It pushes until something fractures, then rebuilds from the shards. There’s a sense of community in shared discomfort here—a reminder that power and loneliness can co-exist. It’s messy. It’s sharp. It doesn’t end cleanly. But then, what does?
Choice Tracks
Doberman
This one snarls before it sings. “Doberman” finds Deafheaven gnashing their teeth on a riff that doesn’t gallop so much as stomp—slow, deliberate, heavy as guilt. The vocals don’t claw for space; they hover like bad thoughts in a quiet room. And that breakdown? It doesn’t build tension—it lives in it, lets it rot a little, then burns it down. Controlled chaos disguised as restraint.
Magnolia
“Magnolia” drips like ink across faded parchment. There’s melody here, but it’s scorched, cracked around the edges. The band leans into a spiraling motion, each part rotating around the other like rusted gears grinding through syrup. The beauty of it is how brittle it feels without ever breaking. It plays like someone trying to remember a dream and getting lost in the fog of it.
Heathen
Clocking in as a centerpiece, “Heathen” doesn’t rush to prove anything. It sprawls. It wanders. But every moment feels placed, like bruises left from the same hand. The guitars flicker—one minute a dying lightbulb, the next a floodlight. The track meditates on collapse. It’s not loud for impact; it’s loud because the silence would be unbearable.
Winona
“Winona” goes straight for the solar plexus. There’s a pulse underneath—steady, hollow, unnerving. The lyrics land like half-heard conversations in a dark hallway. It’s intimate, but there’s something about the delivery that feels like it’s keeping you at arm’s length. Not out of cruelty—out of self-preservation.
The Marvelous Orange Tree
This closer floats and crashes in equal measure. There’s a cinematic patience here, but without the gloss. It’s as if the band knows you’ve survived everything before it, and now they’re letting the ash settle. It’s not a curtain call—it’s a quiet refusal to leave the stage. The guitars sigh more than scream, but they carry weight with every breath.
Deafheaven’s Lonely People with Power moves like a fever dream wrapped in steel wool. It’s haunted, thoughtful, and often beautifully brutal—where melody bleeds into menace and still leaves room for reflection. This record stays with you, whether you want it to or not.