In the years after Deafheaven released their seminal masterpiece Sunbather, the group has been caught in a sort of tug of war between straying too far from what works and sounding too much like themselves. Even their best moments post-Sunbather have felt self-conscious about how well they were riding the line. From the other side of Infinite Granite though, it feels like that sonic departure was the palate cleanser they needed.
Lonely People in Power finds the group as self-assured as ever, offering up a comprehensive blend of their different modes that feels less like an attempt to fix what isn’t broken than an embrace of everything they’ve done.
If Alcest had hung it up after 
Throughout their twenty-five year career, MONO have demonstrated time and time again that they are masters of duality. Their best material finds them unifying the gorgeous orchestration of their “neo-classical” brand of post rock and bombastic catharsis that sometimes stretches into metal territory. Their tours have found them accompanied by a full orchestra while sharing bills with the likes of 
“Ecstatic black metal” seems a bit like an oxymoron. If you were to ask someone to describe black metal in one word, “ecstatic” might not come up very often. In fact, if you were to create a relevant Family Feud category, guessing it would land you a big fat X and a Steve Harvey overreaction.
If there’s one thing the metal community loves, it’s hyperbole. There are thousands of metal records that come out a year, and they are all described with superlatives.
If you’ve been following along at home, you’ll remember that I