Deadwood: "Picturing a Sense of Loss"

It catches my eye when someone compares a band to Totalselfhatred, in truth the opening track of Deadwood's ripping 2014 release "Picturing a Sense of Loss" reminds me more of the days when Shining was good. They are ok throwing in the slightly shoegazing clean passages right from the first song. These guys also have an incredible guitar tone that makes these melodic passages sing and soar more. living in a post  Deafheaven world these guys are inspired to go places their depressive forefather did not tread.

They let the calm before their storm linger more on "White Tears Gently Touching the Earth".  The use ore double bass than blast beats which gives a more elegant sweeping sound to things. The blast beats do come and the song lulls you into a trance and hovers over your head. Though the meat of it doesn't grab you as much as the opening song.They float away with you on "Ending Circles" which almost starts to sound like the new Pink Floyd album. When it blasts off it hits that sonic honey that Deafheaven use to. It's pretty fair to say these guys are more black gaze than they are depressive suicidal black metal.

This finds them engaging you more than putting you into a trance where the music fades into the background. Black metal often has a problem with this even old Dark Throne included where you are like shit , what song am I on? The Cocteau Twins like guitar that opens up "Soiled" makes it abundantly clear this album is sailing onto grim fairy lands.It ends with a more rock n roll guitar solo that is clearly David Gilmore influenced. They go from a cascadian drone into a melodic majesty.

They close out the album with the eleven plus minute "NA1.7". it doesn't touch on any ground that has not already been covered, it just comes across as a slightly angrier and more anguished take on it.However the guitar work in the latter half on the song is pretty astounding, these guys bring a great deal of class to what they do. I'll round this one up to a 9, even though they touch on many of the same sounds they are beautiful sounds, the formula they use gets a little predictable by the end of the album, but this doesn't diminish the fact they are so good at what they do.