Blackgaze might be my favorite genre of all time, but even I can get tired of tuning in on an album I found while scrounging through Bandcamp and hearing yet another Deafheaven clone. I was a little scared that this album was going to be just that, since Love // Paranoia (no, not the Tame Impala song) wears their Deafheaven inspiration on their sleeve. However, I was very pleasantly as this album subverted my expectations and created their own little corner in the blackgaze sphere.
Like Deafheaven, Love // Paranoia is a very modern, urban take on blackgaze. Discarding the fantastical lyrics of predecessors like Alcest, instead choosing to focus on expression of raw emotion through a blackgaze / post-hardcore lens. As for lyrical themes, Love // Paranoia focuses on ... well love and paranoia. Specifically seemingly failed love, as heard in track 3 Where Sunlight Last Burned, a beautiful and poetic song about a failed relationship. The next track, 52 Hertz, is a drone-y mess dealing with vague mentions of suicide from loneliness. When I got to these two tracks, I really knew I found something special. It's not a happy album by any stretch of the imagination, much like how Sunbather is not a happy album, but then again are there really any happy blackgaze albums?
If you are going to listen to this album for any reason, listen to it for the lyrics. That's where this album truly shines. Every single song is written carefully, showing true mastery over poetry that you won't even be able to understand anyways because of the screaming. Track 6, Bermuda, is also almost single-handedly worth checking out though if you don't want to sit through a whole album. It's everything great about this band rolled into one song - a beautiful post-rock intro into a blackgaze section to a shoegaze-y post-hardcore section.
For what it is, Hanashi is a beautifully raw album. Balancing grounded lyrical themes of drugs, suicide and failed love with more poetic themes of moonlight, flowers and other such things.
Check it out here:
https://loveparanoiahtx.bandcamp.com/album/hanashi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOXvy93UHpg
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