I didn‰’t really like Sunbather.

That‰’s a bold statement, I know. Some of you wanted to punch me in the eye as you read that. Oh well that‰’s just how I feel. It‰’s now been a few months since the end of 2013 and I think it‰’s been adequate time to let the dust settle, but I‰’ve also found myself still thinking about this record and this topic since it really has no time frame. This record and its domination of 2013‰’s Top 10 lists were probably my biggest pet peeves of last year. After the hype machine churned and decided Sunbather was a near perfect record I started to think “What‰’s wrong with me?‰” “It‰’s Deafheaven. Why don‰’t I care about this record?‰” “Its metal, on a record label I love and its critically acclaimed. What am I missing?‰” Admittedly I didn‰’t listen to the whole record, and still haven‰’t. As my personal rule of thumb, if a record doesn‰’t hit you in the face and blow you away with in the first two minutes of skimming the songs, its simply not interesting enough to linger on. Most of you will say, “But how can you judge it not having given it a proper full listen?‰” Well I can‰’t fully make an educated review but that‰’s not the point of this article. I‰’m not reviewing the record. I‰’m not qualified to do that at this time. I did however listen to about half of it in an effort to become fully able to form an opinion and I couldn‰’t get through it. I was bored and again had to ask myself “Why?‰Û

These thoughts ate me up inside. Distressed me beyond relief, actually. I tried my hardest to be open-minded and I failed. In an attempt to answer my question, I wracked the Internet looking for a review that gave the record, in my opinion, a more realistic rating. It took awhile but I realized that a cursory search brought me to websites that may cover many genres of music but not specifically metal. That was the problem. I was looking in the wrong place because Sunbather is barely a metal record. Generally, the top 10 lists the record was included on had no records from genres even close to its own. Weird. Instead Kanye West or Sky Ferreira accompanied it. Now don‰’t get me wrong I‰’ve seen them, they are amazing to watch live and Sunbather and Roads to Judah both have album art that should be given awards on their own just for being so beautiful. To me it was a technically good record but I couldn‰’t get the idea out of my mind that I know there are bands that have meshed these genres the same way only just as good or better. It takes some digging but once you find a metal site that reviews the record the highest rating I could find was an 8.5/10 given to them by someone who cites them as their favorite band but a site like pitchfork gave it an 8.9/10. Frankly, that makes absolutely no sense to me. Shouldn‰’t the person that loves the genre and the band give the record a higher score than the person that writes for the hipster mecca that is Pitchfork? I don‰’t know that‰’s a hard question.

Like I said before this isn‰’t really about the record. It‰’s about what thoughts and issues the record brings up. I know the above is long winded; all to make a point that is almost unrelated to the record itself but I believe is an important question to bring up and this record is a perfect example. When it comes to writing album reviews what does or doesn‰’t make someone qualified? Is it the person‰’s depth of knowledge of a specific genre? Or is it not knowing a lot about the genre and being able to listen to it without comparing it to similar things? Does the genre of the record even matter? Would this record have been as highly scored if it came out a year from now? Or if it had a different album cover? These are all things that we will never know. But in the end this is an open letter to all who review music, urging them to ask questions like these.