As teased, Deafheaven have announced their fifth album, Infinite Granite, which is due August 20 via Sargent House (pre-order). Longtime producer Jack Shirley engineered this one, and production duties were instead handled by Justin Meldal-Johnsen, whose recent credits include M83, Paramore, and Jimmy Eat World. It was mixed by Darrell Thorp (Foo Fighters, Radiohead, etc).

Along with the new production team comes a new sound, as you can hear on the just-released lead single “Great Mass of Color.” Deafheaven have experimented with clean vocals in the past, but here George Clarke relies almost entirely on his singing voice and pushes it to the forefront, only bringing in his trademark screams for some brief embellishment near the end. For most of the song, the guitars are clean, jangly, and mixed in with ethereal synths, and the track pulls largely from goth, post-punk, and shoegaze, only hinting at metal. It’s the most drastic departure that Deafheaven have made yet, but it also feels like a natural progression. They were already headed in this direction on the last album; “Great Mass of Color” makes the full leap.

Listen to the new song and check out the tracklist and album art (designed by Touche Amore’s Nick Steinhardt, who’s designed all of Deafheaven’s album covers) below.

Tracklist
Shellstar
In Blur
Great Mass of Color
Neptune Raining Diamonds
Lament for Wasps
Villain
The Gnashing
Other Language
Mombasa

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28 Essential Songs from the Shoegaze / Heavy Crossover

Listen and/or subscribe to our playlist of all 28 songs: