A man sat by the wall with his eyes closed, tapping his thighs to the furious blast beats of Deafheaven.
Even with his eyes opened he wouldn’t have seen much; a massive crowd stretched out from the stage at Brisbane’s Crowbar (24 February) and blocked the view.
However, the lack of visibility didn’t dull the Californian group’s performance with their take on black metal as powerful live as on their four exceptional albums.
Dreamy saxophone loops played by Takiya Reed introduced the Melbourne-based duo Divide And Dissolve. Satisfied with the loop she’s created, Takiya swapped her saxophone for a guitar. Her amp crackled to life before a low drone rumbled from it, joined by a funeral-paced beat from drummer Sylvie Nehill.
The duo is active in the fight against racism, Takiya speaking between dirges of the continued presence of white supremacy. After informing the crowd that Australia “is the most racist place”, a man cried, “No, it’s not!” The room went quiet bar a few muted groans.
Rather than unleash fury like their music, Takiya calmly invited the heckler to the stage to explain their viewpoint. Instead, the heckler retreated and the duo received applause for their powerful music and stance.
Deafheaven took the stage to the sound of church bells, which were drowned out by the jagged riffs of opening song ‘Brought To The Water’. Wearing long, black latex gloves, singer George Clarke grasped his mic and shrieked into it receiving a round of applause from fans.
Black metal is not a hopeful genre; it is bleak, harrowing, and sounds as if it were recorded in the blackest pit of despair.
Deafheaven use the associated elements in their music – shrieks, blast beats, and tremolo strumming – but this performance showed the cognitive dissonance in their version of black metal. The guitars on ‘Baby Blue’ would change at the drop of a hat from frantic buzzing to lush picking, both conveying hope in their ascending melodies.
When not barking himself hoarse, Clarke found the heaviness in the dreamier passages of ‘Honeycomb’ when he stood upon the stage’s railing and whipped his long mane around. The crowd gazed at the stage in awe, lifting their arms in praise of Clarke’s mighty shriek.
It wasn’t until an encore performance of ‘Dream House’ that moshing was noticeable. Bespectacled guitarist Kerry McCoy was finally visible when he repeatedly leapt up to stand on the railing, each time losing his balance from forcefully swinging his guitar.
But Clarke stood tall above the crowd, gripping his mic in one hand while holding onto the ceiling with the other. He let go, and his fans reached out and held him up as he let out one more shriek.
