Music that makes Satyricon look creative and Enslaved feel manly.

Starting off with what sounds like a pop-punk band covering a My Dying Bride song while a spastic ADD drummer hits his kit randomly, it’s safe to say that this album “Sunbather” is a pretend black metal sham, and it is.

Like so many other releases by “extreme metal” bands like Watain and nu Emperor, Deafheaven is black metal on the outside, but it is pure emo all the way down to its (metal)core.

To be honest, that comparison is a bit unfair to Deafheaven as they – unlike Watain, Summoning and Wolves in the Clone Room – never claimed to play black metal. Still, they play bad music, and that is reason enough to mock them.

Everything that’s wrong with modern “metal” can be found on this album “Sunbather”.

For starters, “Sunbather” is not even a metal album, having more in line with the screamo with more minor chords and blast-beats variant that is referred to as “emo-violence”, like their clone targets Massachusetts band Orchid.

The only thing that makes this album “black metal” is a couple rare moments where a “blackened mallcore” part akin to something maybe Nargaroth (lol) would have done makes an appearance to break up some of the monotony of whiny screamo over tremolo picked emo chord progressions. And even then, it feels like a generic DSBM part that could have been borrowed from Shining or Xasthur.

Abandon this heresy and go listen to “Under a Funeral Moon” or “Locked up in Hell” at once.