“Revelator is chock full of riffs. The chorus is just like, ‘What if a war metal band had Portishead chords?’”: Deafheaven’s Shiv Mehra and Kerry McCoy on atonality vs the ethereal, pedalboard thrill-seeking and their return to super-heavy guitars

A black-and-white portrait of Deafheaven's Shiv Mehra [left] and Kerry McCoy playing guitar in close-up.

Before Deafheaven released Infinite Granite in 2021, the metal world seemed to have the band pegged for its shoegaze-obsessed black metal sound. But the group’s fifth album was a major detour that left fans divided.

Produced by longtime Beck collaborator Justin Meldal-Johnsen and rife with dreamy, layered guitar and synth textures, mid-tempo beats – and notably, George Clarke’s actual singing voice instead of his usual skin-peeling demonic shriek – Infinite Granite crushed fans’ expectations like a slab of Precambrian rock.