My first introduction to Seattle indie rock quartet Deep Sea Diver was their appearance on The Portland Sessions performing folksy versions of three tracks from their 2012 debut album, History Speaks. Returning to the comment section of that video thirteen years later gives some sense of the band’s development since then:
“This is like Deep Sea Diver from a mildly variant parallel universe, and what a pleasure it is.” – @Elucidarian
“This is 2016, and the band’s sound has changed a lot. In a good way though.” – @TanvirHKShuvo
On their latest evolution, Billboard Heart, Deep Sea Diver sound more massive than ever, embracing lush arrangements and synthetic textures while still centering frontwoman Jessica Dobson’s distinctive voice and angular guitarwork. Since their last LP in 2020, the band have signed to Sub Pop and toured with Pearl Jam, and it’s hard not to see the influence of bigger budgets and bigger stages on this album. Dobson, who performed with Beck, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the Shins before forming Deep Sea Diver with her husband in 2009, has embraced her rightful place as one of contemporary indie rock’s strongest band leaders. Deep Sea Diver’s most recent tour featured her shredding atop a light-up “Guitar Solo Box,” but on Billboard Heart, Dobson’s vocals take center-stage, particularly on the title track, which features an absolute barnburner of a vocal performance reminiscent of St. Vincent or Lucius.
Deeper into the album, the sound turns heavier, displaying the band’s knack for balancing traditional rock instrumentation with electronic production elements. ‘Emergency’ has the requisite driving distorted guitars and bombastic drums, but some of the track’s most distinctive moments are when synthetic bleeps and bloops rise out of the guitar feedback, and even the guitar solo features a glitchy, stuttering tone that is indicative of the kinds of sonic experimentalism that distinguish Billboard Heart from Deep Sea Diver’s earlier catalog.
Perhaps the sleeper hit of the album is the penultimate track, ‘See in the Dark’—the arrangement on the verses is more sparse than many of the album’s tracks, evoking the earlier Deep Sea Diver catalog, but when the instrumentation picks up in the choruses, it’s all the better for that contrast. Dobson’s vocal performance is stunning, as expected, and the guitar solo is among the most tasteful on the album. It’s a testament to how good the songwriting is on Billboard Heart that this track isn’t among the three singles released in advance of the album.
While the lyrics on Billboard Heart often speak to self-doubt and anxiety, the overall impression the album creates is of a band unafraid to trust their instincts and lean into their strengths. Simply put, it is a triumph from start to finish.
Billboard Heart is out on February 28th from Subpop Records.
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Review by Alex Evans
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