Where earlier works added color to a lack of feeling, the pits and peaks of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love strike a richer chord by painting in a hue a shade lighter and adding detail to the demons in the dark.

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Consequence of Sound

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love has moving, emotional pieces and sharp performances bolstered by a band clearly stretching out of its comfort zone successfully. The album is a refreshing new shade of their sound without abandoning the band’s core mechanics.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love takes the strengths of its predecessors and refines them even further, which results in a dynamic emotional and musical experience that previous Deafheaven records came close to achieving, but never quite like this.

‘Ordinary Corrupt Human Love’ is simply the latest landmark in a career of landmarks.

Five years removed from their landmark Sunbather, Deafheaven have never seemed less interested in being fashionable—as a result, they sound newly content.

They’ve experimented with vocals, concentrated their musical chemistry, further polished their production, and tweaked their songwriting so that the transitions between movements in their songs are less sheer cliff-faces of fury and more lithe passages. All this, combined with some of the best songs they’ve ever written, makes Ordinary Corrupt Human Love the band’s most irrefutable credential as a leader in modern Rock.

Northern Transmissions

Despite some obvious flaws, Deafheaven’s latest is another excellent addition to their catalog, with a refreshingly positive take on love and happiness in yourself and others.

Deafheaven reaches for the light, marking their latest album as their most engaging, thought-provoking effort to date.

One needn’t agree with the “die hipster” crowd to feel occasionally drained by the all-grandeur-all-the-time approach—the way almost every song here seems to operate in a constant state of crescendo. But only the most stubborn traditionalist could deny how close Deafheaven often gets to the higher plane of its name.

Deafheaven is a ambitious heavy rock band, a gathering of innovative musical minds, and one of the very best guitar bands on Earth. Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is strong evidence of all three.

Deafheaven finally look comfortable in their many different skins, their opposing worlds gliding together seamlessly, able to change between brutally heavy and light as air in seconds.

On OCHL, Deafheaven refuse to settle for a scene or a sound, but rather open themselves up to textures and combinations that defy simple categorization. Music is their joy, their tool and their medium, and heaviness is just one thread in the process.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is a critical reminder to card-carrying loyalists and new inductees alike of their own agency; that it's potentially revelatory, not sacrilegious, for the spectrum of black metal to include things outside of its purview.

From here, there can be no mistake; Deafheaven are the real deal.

These songs are filthy, dank, often devoid of light, but like a weed emerging from a pavement’s crack, there’s something resembling hope there.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love isn't going to change detractors' minds about Deafheaven. Instead, with its searing depictions of emotional and spiritual struggle in a relentlessly ambitious musical presentation, it should attract a new legion of listeners as well as deliver assurance and solace to those who found their earlier records so compelling.

On just seven songs that run a little over an hour, Deafheaven have finally achieved what they’ve been striving towards for the better part of a decade: true post-metal fusion.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love ... marks a band brimming with confidence, experimenting with their sound, adding new textures at every turn.

Not only does OCHL feel more balanced than the band’s three previous releases—which each placed an enormous burden upon their few moments of passive instrumentation to maintain an even keel—it also feels entirely more transparent.

Although the band have spent their last three albums developing a cohesive, distinct sound that’s all their own, on ‘OCHL’ they’re keen to take risks, side step that familiar territory and play with the formula.

While Deafheaven do their best to coalesce their efforts on OCHL, it’s the bigger moments that resonate most satisfyingly. It’s not perfect, but on this evidence, the Cali-based group are still one of today’s most stimulating metal bands.

At times, the band's genre-bending excursions sometimes result in slightly deformed arrangements that are impressive in scope but not in efficiency. But that shouldn't deter one from Deafheaven's wondrous and impressionistic creation. It is, like most of their polarizing body of work, equal parts off-putting and fiercely inclusive.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love is a waypoint in an increasingly divided world of niche cultures and categorisations, and it’ll capture the imaginations of those secure outside their comfort zones while further alienating detractors.

Maybe the eclecticism and excellence of this as a piece of music marks this as the moment we should all just start praising Deafheaven for the ambition and honesty of what they are, rather than bemoaning what they aren’t, and clearly have no interest in being.

Rife with post-rock cliches, Deafheaven's fourth album contains the band's least inspired genre-blending to date.

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joshmq71

I'm sorry guys but this is astonishing. Deafheaven have managed to top "Sunbather" with an utterly chilling, beautiful and emotional record that has left me in my feelings. The riffs are excellent, the production is so punchy and crisp, the vocals are just as amazing as ever and the song structures are immaculate; leading to some of the most chilling conclusions that give me goosebumps every time. The album's pacing is also fantastic, even the short interludes feel significant and ... read more

cosmonauts

one day i heard randomnly "Near" and i loved it but when i try to hear the full album i couldn't pass the first song and seeing the lenght of the tracks i got bored, not till days ago i decided to gave it a second chance meanwhile i still find the opening track kind of plain it fullfills it function of an introduction, from "honeycomb" to "glint" it's a great track run.

"night people" is a change from this 'blackgaze' to something more goth rock while i ... read more

4mo

buttholewasabi

Been following Deafheaven back when I was only 13 years old, to see them drop an album like this and it be this incredible, is amazing.

3y*

chunderz

When Deafheaven first burst onto the scene with ‘Roads to Judah,’ no one really paid too much attention. Then came the sonic tour de force, ‘Sunbather,’ an absolutely stunning album that was much-maligned within the metal community for not being “KVLT” enough. ‘Sunbather,’ as well as ‘New Bermuda’ showed clear progression from a band that knew what they were doing, and doing it extremely well. Their latest offering, ‘Ordinary ... read more

3y*