By: Michael Ruhl
CHICAGO– Deafheaven is riding high off their brand new album release entitled “Lonely People With Power,” which sees them returning to form on their mixture of Black Metal and Shoegaze. The band lead by the intense vocal attack of lead singer, George Clark, has been known to transition from genre to genre with ease as the last album in 2021, “Infinite Granite,” was solely focused on dream pop. While earlier albums like their 2011 “Roads to Judah,” had a strong post-rock and instrumental influence. However, throughout the years, the band has remained rooted in the influences of black metal.
Their setlist contained mostly tracks from 2025’s “Lonely People With Power,” which was completely satisfying to their audience as the new album is some of their best work to date.
Starting with the song “Doberman,” the band crushes with their high treble black metal attack, but then goes into a crushing breakdown. Which was a new sound for the band, but they pulled it off effortlessly. Guitarists Kerry McCoy and Shiv Mehra put their immense talent on display as they switch from beautiful, clean passages to devastating riffs.
The band uses a lot of new wave style influence on their new album tracks as can be seen on another track, “Amethyst.” The guitars are playing these psychedelically tinged, beautiful, clean sections, then switching into these brutal and fast tremolo attacks referencing early Black Metal bands such as Mayhem. Vocalist George Clark noted that he had struggled with regaining his voice throughout the day earlier to the performance, but he rallied through and delivered an incredible performance. Clark’s vocal range is incredibly impressive as the soaring screams he does go from high-pitched nasally screeches to low-pitched monstrous growls. Deafheaven is a band with immense versatility and proves this again with a performance that is both beautiful and crushing.
Gatecreeper from Phoenix, Arizona, was the direct support for Deafheaven on this tour and is also touring on the back of a brand new 2024 album, “Dark Superstition.” Gatecreeper, led by vocalist Chase Mason, delivers a crushing brand of Death Metal that also has a catchy edge that allows them to fill even the biggest of venues.
Gatecreeper was my first post-pandemic show at the Metro, and I remember being so blown away that it re-ignited a deep love for metal music and live performance. Gatecreeper’s new album was shining bright on their setlist as they started the night off with a suite focused directly on the new album. Songs like, “Caught In The Treads,” are wonderfully anthemic as the crowd at the Metro was grooving and headbanging but the song switches into brutal breakdown sections as Mason’s vocals soar devastatingly over the top of the mix. Gatecreeper’s guitar player Eric Wagner is immense on stage as his riffs are crushing and his stature looms monstrously with the shadowed light.
Gatecreeper played a few songs from their incredible debut album 2016’s “Sonoran Deprivation” with the early setlist including the crushing “Patriarchal Grip.” Gatecreeper has only gotten tighter and more anthemic. However, their debut album is some of the rawest and brutal material they have made, coming out of the strong influences of death metal bands they had adored.
The band is often described by metalheads for taking the Swedish Buzzsaw sound that is gained by using Boss HM-2 distortion pedals; bands like Dismember and Entombed are perfect examples of this. Gatecreeper mixed this style of influence with the American Wave of Death Metal bands that took the genre into large venues such as Obituary and Cannibal Corpse.
While Gatecreeper wears their influences strong on their sleeves (and often on their shirts as well), they manage to make a sound completely their own. Gatecreeper ended the set with the notoriously devastating “Flamethrower,” one of the most brutal and effective songs they have written. The riffs in the second chorus passage are insane and cannot be believed in a live setting. Gatecreeper is a perfect opener for Deafheaven as the styles of beauty and crushing devastation balance each other out perfectly.
Fort Worth, Texas’s Trauma Ray was the first band on at 7:30 sharp, and their sound focuses way more on shoegaze style than metal, which allowed for some great mixed bill versatility. Trauma Ray dropped an album in 2024 called “Chameleon” on Dais Records. This album has a strong shoegaze focus with how spacey and reverbed the vocals and riffs are.
There is definitely a dreamlike and psychedelic quality to Trauma Ray’s music that has become synonymous with styles of Shoegaze and dream pop. Trauma Ray adds to this formula greatly by adding some edge to the dreamy riffs as the Orange Crush distortion rings out these riffs with a buzzing and aggressive sound. Songs like “Breath” are shining examples of why Trauma Ray has been so widely praised in the worlds of shoegaze, as the catchy songwriting mixes with the dreamy landscape built by the band so wonderfully.
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