Photo by Kristin Cofer
When Deafheaven announced New Bermuda in July, bandleader George Clarke offered a hazy sentiment in the press release suggesting that the title referred to "a new destination in life, a nebulous point of arrival." It was as vague as the average record press release, but a month later, Clarke provided clarity in his interview with Rolling Stone, expanding on the "Bermuda" factor and the gravity of this destination. "It's basically sort of a play on the [Bermuda] Triangle — it's like, you're traveling to this place, and you think this is what you want, and you think this is where everything is going to be good. And before that happens, you're swallowed up by the realities of life, the day-to-day."
For most of us, the introduction to Deafheaven came with 2013’s Sunbather, which found Clarke soaking up the affluence and suburban comfort all around him, wondering what a slice of it might taste like. Particularly on the title track, he delivered a knotty take on the American Dream; Clarke, who had recently spent his nights on the floor of a tiny flat with guitarist Kerry McCoy, drove through a sea of mansions and succumbed to extraordinary depression. In an interview with Pitchfork, Clarke characterized the song as coming from a "'what the fuck am I doing with my life' mood." It might seem easy to read sections of the record as by-the-bootstraps capitalist screeds, but Clarke has a bleak enough outlook on the likelihood of success to stop himself before he gets ahead.
If Sunbather was a disillusioned road map, then New Bermuda’s the doomsday arrival. Following their sophomore LP, Deafheaven experienced acclaim that few bands ever achieve, sporting the objectively best-reviewed album of the year, and playing to rooms of larger and larger crowds. Post-Sunbather, McCoy can comfortably blow a few hundred at the OVO store, and Clarke moved to a place in Los Angeles with his girlfriend. Their success sounds like an exhale, but New Bermuda somehow flips the central conceit of "started from the bottom, now we’re here" squarely on its head—the "here" is a trap, void of complete satisfaction and emotional stability.
Deafheaven’s third release is ostensibly a California album. Clarke doesn’t offer any explicit references to places in California, L.A., or even any concrete location (aside from a cryptic recording about George Washington Bridge lane closures at the end of "Baby Blue"), but he delves deep into the emotional consequences of living in its so-called paradise. On "Luna", Clarke denies himself the picturesque setting which surrounds him: "I’ve boarded myself inside. I’ve refused to exit/ There is no ocean for me/ There is no glamour." The interiors of New Bermuda’s are dark—it sure behaves like a direct reaction to the hullaballoo over whether or not Deafheaven is metal enough. Sunbather felt like coasting above the clouds in a chariot; its follow-up often devours you like quicksand.
But for as much as New Bermuda responds to the band’s detractors, it’s also a rebuttal to Clarke’s desires on Sunbather. Aside from striving toward a better future, the band’s breakthrough was concerned with Clarke mending up relationships and giving loved ones the care they deserve. But the bright lights, peach-stained sunsets, and reimagined suburbia only serve as a catalyst for burrowing further inside his mind, instead of looking outward. Throughout "Brought to the Water", Clarke reluctantly submits to adulthood malaise, and frets over giving up simple pleasures. When he screams, "my world closes its eyes to sex and laughter," you can sense his resistance—yet it still seems like an irrevocable shift.
Similarly, Lana Del Rey cast California as a vital supporting character on her third major-label effort, Honeymoon. If Clarke is Naomi Watts's character in the thick of Mullholland Dr., just getting a taste of L.A.’s ugly layers beneath the peel, then Del Rey is Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd.—she's hardened into a reluctant diva who claims she’s "got nothing much to live for, ever since I found my fame." It’s a dark, lonely glimpse of Hollywood at night.
The city is all but stripped of its glamour in Honeymoon's universe, and it manifests itself as an opulent, darwinian backdrop for Del Rey's misery. She casually eulogizes a failing relationship on "High By the Beach" by subverting much of the location’s allure: "We won’t survive, we’re sinking in the sand." When she swaps out the song’s title for "all I wanna do is get by by the beach, get by baby, baby, bye bye," you can write an implied "whatever" into her attitude toward the setting. She’s out of fucks to give about her lover, but seems equally unmoved by the place itself.
When she’s not shrugging it off, L.A. drains the life out of Lana. "God Knows I Tried", an early highlight from Honeymoon, finds Del Rey at her most resigned—it reads like a morose, yet razor-sharp submission to the media circuit which has wavered between deifying and ridiculing her. She outlines an exhausting, see-saw routine ("Sometimes I wake up in the morning/ To red, blue, and yellow lights/ On Monday they destroy me/ But by Friday, I’m revived") which could mark any week in the life of Lana Del Rey, but it’s tempting to stretch the period out to her entire career, after that ill-fated "SNL" performance.
Honeymoon works as a dazzling indication of Del Rey’s artistic progress over the last three years, yet also a reminder of how cool disastisfaction remains constant in her work. Fame spawns a laundry list of added pressures, but here they coexist with the universal aches and fears that come with love lost. When George Clarke talks about "the realities of life, the day-to-day" he’s likely talking about the looming fear of complacency, but Del Rey's day-to-day seems consumed by longing—for past loves, future loves, or just a break from the multicolored lights.
Take "Terrence Loves You", when she recalls the toxic imprint of an ex-lover, who drives her to "still get trashed, darling," when she hears his tunes. Del Rey treads on similar ground to when Clarke submitted to the "amber crutch" on Sunbather by letting a reliable vice mask the distance from what she’s striving toward. Whether the destination’s a dream house or a romantic partner in crime, the desired outcome seems clear—the challenge is making it a true haven rather than a temporary escape.