The single Heavener (not to be confused with the album Heavener) breaks my heart in multiple ways: it is one of the most emotionally intense songs of the whole year, and it also makes me immensely sad that this song didn't make it in time for the album release. Yes, the band did only start writing this after the album came out, and I'm still extremely glad and grateful that they released it all, but can you imagine this title track actually being on the album as the last song? It might've legitimately made Heavener my AOTY if it was on there.
Heavener very aptly and beautifully ties up the entire album cycle's narrative and soul in a four-and-a-half minute masterpiece. Featuring the very best of every aspect of their sound, save for the sonic heaviness, Heavener is an ethereal experience like no other, and I think Marcus did an amazing job coalescing the identity of the album into one song.
Heavener presents itself, for the most part, along the same lines as Without A Whisper, being a super atmospheric song with angelic cleans. The verses are soft and powered by ambience, in contrast to the chorus where the guitars come in to provide bolder rhythm parts. There's background leads in the verses too which add a lot of flavour, and the drums are great at matching the energy throughout. They also seem to reprise a line from Without A Whisper ("yeah, you"), and whether that's intentional or not, it's a lovely touch.
Heavener's breakdown is definitively the biggest moment of the song, of the whole album cycle, and maybe even all of progressive metalcore this year. There was something extremely emotionally evocative about how they wrote this moment, one that I truly think meets the standards of perfection. The build up to it, with the vocals slowly getting stronger until the callout, and going from falsetto to sing-scream at the same vocal range is already top tier performance on Marcus' part, but the guitar riff? It feels so unbelievably human, so powerful with the way the melody feels like an outpour of emotions, I feel like it transcended what it meant to be a guitar riff and is now some partially divine melodic construct. If you couldn't tell from my praises, it blew my mind. I got goosebumps the first time I heard it and almost teared up, and it never failed to that for the next few times that I replayed it.
Even after a behemoth of a moment like that, they still make the whole song extremely cohesive, wrapping up the song perfectly with another repeat of the chorus and the breakdown section. It's so beautiful that it honestly makes me want to just close my eyes and soak in it every time it plays, regardless of when and where I am.
Other than the breakdown, it's not a particularly technical song in any aspect, vocals or instruments, but there's something so thematically perfect about what they wrote here. It's the way the song perfectly encapsulates the intensity of grief, the joy that it draws from, and the bittersweet aftermath, expressing it in a way that words alone cannot, in a way that you really can feel.
Heavener has completely captivated me, more emotionally loaded than any other song I have come across by far. I keep coming back for the breakdown, but I listen to the whole song because it gives the breakdown meaning, and then I feel things. In the musical landscape of today, few songs have the power to connect a listener to the humanness in them, in others, and this song is so special in that way. This one is going in my hall of fame, for sure.
Rating: 5/5