Deafheaven / Bosse-de-Nage

Los-Angelus based post-black metal band Deafheaven proved their willingness to explore and experiment with the genre far more than most of their contemporaries with their mind-blowing debut, Road to Judah. Now, they've produced a split seven-inch with the likeminded Bosse-de-Nage that easily fills that record's rather imposing shoes. The Deafheaven side of this split features their rendition of "Punk Rock/Cody" by Mogwai, in which they continue to push boundaries and blur the lines between black metal, post-rock, shoegaze and drone. The song's slow build is relentless without ever getting stale or sacrificing the emotional release so crucial to this style of music, not to mention the dynamics are flawless, with blasting drums, huge, dense walls of sound and screeching, guttural screams that make your blood boil. Bosse-de-Nage match their experimental black metal counterparts with their nine-minute original offering, "A Mimesis of Purpose," which also features near-perfect use of dynamics and instrumentation. Even though they stay much closer to their black metal core than Deafheaven, Bosse-de-Nage aren't afraid to branch out and make use of a variety of instruments, such as strings in the intro or the hair-raising explosion of horns at the end. Although some of the shifts in pace and tempo can initially come out of nowhere, this split is such an incredible and emotional listening experience that any such small flaws are immediately forgotten.