Deaf Havana Hit Their Stride on ‘All These Countless Nights’
It took a few tries, but this English band is finally filling their full potential
By now, in March of 2017, Deaf Havana have existed in one form or another for close to 12 years. It may be a little odd to think that All These Countless Nights is only the group’s third album, since they have created several other projects in the past, but this is still their third formal, studio album. Falling after Fools and Worthless Liars and Old Souls, this newest effort finds the band refining and perfecting their sound.
It’s evident from listening to this new album that this is Deaf Havana’s best project so far. It isn’t the kind of album that redeems a previously-lackluster career by any means, since the band had already shown their potential before. Rather, I consider this newest album to be the culmination of everything this band can be. Deaf Havana always had the potential to make fantastic music; and now they’ve finally arrived.
Every band has to walk the nearly-impossible tightrope act of balancing new sounds with the music that originally won them fans, and so many promising acts have fallen apart in the midst of this challenge. Some bands stay too similar throughout their entire careers; others experiment wildly and lose their original appeal. It’s a difficult task, one that balances maturity with experimentation.
Cast against this backdrop, it may seem like I’m criticizing Deaf Havana’s development prior to this point. I’m not. The band bounced between more aggressive rock on Fools and Worthless Liars and more laid-back sounds on Old Souls, but sounded generally good on both efforts. Each album had a few dull moments, but the band never sounded lost or confused.
On All These Countless Nights though, Deaf Havana finds a new level. The lyrics address similar themes, and the sound makes subtle variations on past efforts to present a more balanced rock sound than on the first two albums. There’s an undeniable sense of maturity that permeates nearly every song here. And here I should be careful again. It’s not that the first two albums lacked this maturity, but rather that the band more fully explores it here. They’ve always written good songs, but they’re fully showing that talent here.
Take the opener, “Ashes, Ashes.” Filled with ruminations on the nature of being a musician and a public figure, the lyrics convey both tired resignation and a sense of energy simultaneously. On the second verse, the lyrics read:
I found myself in a fishbowl and I didn’t leave my house for a month
What’s the point in trying in conversation if you don’t even have the strength to talk?
But it’s alright I said, I’ll stay here and lie away for days
And count the spiders on the ceiling until my mind withers away
This covers the resignation part pretty well. But this song is far from a self-pity anthem, which the chorus shows:
If we could drive away to the places I love the most
When my lungs collapse and my heart turns black
I’ll give my ashes to the coast
In terms of both instrumentation and lyricism, Deaf Havana have reached a sweep spot of maturity, energy, and overall proficiency. They sound sad, but not too sad; resigned, but not too resigned; old, but not too old. For every song that dwells on the darker aspects of life — “Seattle,” “Pretty Low”—there is another filled with energy and resolve. “Sing” fits this description perfectly, as the band turns failures into reasons for simply doing what they do best: playing music.
If there’s one point from this mini-review that’s central, it’s that Deaf Havana have always been a good band, and now they’re turning into a great one. It’s possible that many of their longtime fans would disagree with me, and claim that the band has always been at this level. And that may be true, but from my perspective this is easily their most complete and mature exploration. I give this album a solid recommendation, and I can’t wait to hear where the band goes during their next project.
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