Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Brand New and Sealed, but with laminate peeled slightly and ring wear in the back.

After Sunbather shattered expectations of what black metal could sound and look like, Deafheaven faced the difficult question of where to go next. New Bermuda answered by heading somewhere darker, heavier, and considerably more volatile.

Released in 2015, the band’s third full-length retains the sweeping emotional scale that made its predecessor so extraordinary while pulling back some of its radiant warmth. George Clarke’s scorched vocals and Kerry McCoy’s layered guitars move through furious black-metal passages, crushing riffs, shoegaze textures, and moments of startling melodic beauty. Rather than smoothing those contrasts together, Deafheaven allow them to collide.

“Brought to the Water” opens with a torrent of blast beats and tremolo-picked guitars before gradually revealing the album’s more expansive character, while “Luna,” “Baby Blue,” “Come Back,” and “Gifts for the Earth” continually shift between aggression and atmosphere. The transitions can be dramatic, moving from overwhelming walls of sound into clean guitar passages, post-rock crescendos, and unexpectedly intimate moments without losing the tension holding the record together.

Where Sunbather often felt euphoric even at its most extreme, New Bermuda carries a more ominous weight. There are traces of shoegaze and post-rock throughout, but the metallic foundation is harder and more pronounced, demonstrating that Deafheaven’s crossover appeal never required abandoning the extremity at the core of their music.

This 2015 double-vinyl pressing on black vinyl presents New Bermuda in its original release era.

New Bermuda remains a crucial chapter in Deafheaven’s evolution: immense, confrontational, beautiful, and difficult to categorize. It’s an album that helped prove the boundaries separating black metal, shoegaze, and experimental rock were far less rigid than they once appeared.