Album Review: Deafheaven – Roads to Judah (Deathwish Inc.)

The 12 minute opener, Violet begins softly offering a simple guitar melody with the soft patter of drums in the background. It wraps itself around your mind as the volume increases & the beat intensifies, twisting like early morning mist. At the 4 minute mark it suddenly reaches a crescendo & turns the heaviness up a couple of notchs.

The vocals are dark & brutal sitting comfortably alongside the mind-melting music emerging from instruments that are suffering the most beautiful kind of abuse.

12 minutes fly by, the song never loses it’s original rhythm even though it changes style & direction several times. This is what Deafheaven are so good at, seamlessly blending several different styles into one song & it sounding perfect. This is death metal played with beauty in mind, music should make you weep & Deafheaven can have you filling buckets with just a single song.

At only 4 tracks long it’s no surprise that even the shortest song here still comes in at almost 7 minutes. Language Games doesn’t mess around bringing the noise with a dark blast of heavy metal. It’s still filled with bags of rhythm with easily identifiable riffs & hooks. Like all Deafheaven albums it needs multiple listens to really take it all in.

Unrequited’s sombre start is uniquely exciting & also one of the best things I’ve heard emerge from the band so far. When the intensity is turned up it is seriously turned up, Deafheaven know heavy but it’s still filled with melody & hooks that make it so listenable.

Ending with the near 10 minute, Tunnel of Trees. The blistering start goes out of its way to try & be heavier than anything you’ve heard on the album so far & it only lets up around the halfway point. Dropping into a cold, slow & sorrowful melody with light drumming. It’s as wonderful as anything Deafheaven have done, capturing beauty & elegance in music with a sudden build towards an epic ending. It’s a huge finish, one that retains the heaviness that was evident at the start but at a much slower pace. The piano outro almost had me in tears, no band can make me feel the way Deafheaven does & Tunnel of Trees is one the best songs they’ve ever done.

It’s incredible, Roads of Judah is incredible. I just can’t put into words just how amazing this album is. Stop reading this & go listen to it.

Full Track List:

1. Violet
2. Language Games
3. Unrequited
4. Tunnel of Trees

Author

  • Carl Fisher

    Owner/Administrator/Editor/Writer/Interviewer/YouTuber - you name it, I do it. I love gaming, horror movies, and all forms of heavy metal and rock. I'm also a Discworld super-fan and love talking all things Terry Pratchett. Do you wanna party? It's party time!

Deafheaven - Roads to Judah (Deathwish Inc.)
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