Deafheaven is releasing New Bermuda on October 2 and the first single from the record took a lot of people by surprise. In the past the band has said that the new record would not be Sunbather, Pt. 2, but New Bermuda seems like it'll be a fairly radical departure from that sound. While we can guess all we want on how radical that departure will be, it's easier to just let guitarst Kerry McCoy do the explaining.
He touches on the fact that Deafheaven is still, despite opinions, a metal band and wants to incorporate more metal into the new record.
“That mixture of influences has kind of always been our thing, much to some peoples’ annoyance. But a lot of this record is us being like, ‘Look, we are a metal band. We do a lot of other stuff, but we can solo; we can have some Slayer riffs in there. There was a lot of, ‘Hey, what if we throw some traditional thrash metal stuff in here, but just make it our own?’ And I think it worked really well.”
And also on the fact that Sunbather might have been pretty spacey, but the band is over that sound now that it's been beaten to death.
“I was definitely trying to distance myself from the whole shoegaze thing and go more towards alternative rock, which is why there’s the Oasis homage at the end of ‘Gifts for the Earth,’ and some of the songs have more of a slow-core vibe — like, my take on Low or Red House Painters. There’s even like a Wilco slide guitar-y thing on ‘Come Back.’ Not so much reverb and spacey-ness, which in my opinion is being beaten to death currently, but more of an emphasis on hooks, riffs and real melodies.”
So basically, Deafheaven continues to do what Deafheaven wants and has probably made another astonishing record that everyone will either unequivocally love or label as some form of hipster whatever. Still… more Slayer riffs? Yes please.
