Deafheaven – “In Blur”

Robin Laananen

Deafheaven – “In Blur”

Robin Laananen

Later this month, Bay Area destroyers Deafheaven will release Infinite Granite, the new album that finds them moving in a vastly less abrasive, more soothing direction. Deafheaven recorded the LP with Paramore/M83 collaborator Justin Meldal-Johnsen, though past Deafheaven producer Jack Shirley still engineered the record. Infinite Granite leans more toward shoegaze and prog than the ambitious black metal of the band’s past. We’ve already posted the early tracks “Great Mass Of Color” and “The Gnashing,” and now Deafheaven have also dropped the video for “In Blur,” the last single before the album arrives.

“In Blur,” like its predecessors, finds George Clarke singing clean vocals, not howling, and the band’s guitars set to twinkle rather than bludgeon. The song is five and a half minutes long — short for Deafheaven — and it slowly layers on effects and melodic ideas. It’s pretty enough to soundtrack a romantic interlude on a teen drama.

The John Bradburn-directed “In Blur” video is not a romantic teen-drama interlude. Instead, it’s a psychedelic meditation on the Greek myth of Sisyphus. It does, however, show the members of Deafheaven wearing some very cool sunglasses. Watch it below.

Infinite Granite is out 8/20 on Sargent House. Pre-order it here.

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