One does have to smirk a little that a band as iconoclastic as Deafheaven should be able to aggravate to such a degree by doing something different. Dismissed by black metal at large for being hipsters with a pink album cover (2013’s Sunbather), and catching grief from sections of their own fanbase for the moments of unashamed ’90s Brit indie on 2018’s excellent Ordinary Corrupt Human Love, a lesson should have been learned by now that the San Francisco quintet aren’t any kind of band but Deafheaven, and to expect otherwise is folly. So it goes that the almost total absence of the metal bit of their sound in favour of a heavy thirst for Radiohead’s OK Computer on Inifinite Granite already had the knives out before the whole thing was even released. The ...
