Billboard Heart Deep Sea Diver

The rapturous “Billboard Heart” is a stunning introduction to Deep Sea Diver’s universe. The song puts Dobson and her band in the company of St. Vincent, TV on the Radio, and Flock of Dimes, bands that have found ornate and magnetic ways to make indie rock by discarding notions of how it must sound or what it must say. Dobson punches through her past here with this new song and forthcoming album. As she howls during “Billboard Heart” she is “welcoming the future by letting go of it.”

From end to end, the material on Billboard Heart is astonishing. The title track is the one song Deep Sea Diver actually finished in Los Angeles. It’s a radiant and magnificent thing, the billowing synths of Elliot Jackson and tunneling pedal steel of Greg Leisz bolstering an anthem for fearlessly advancing into the future. “Emergency” links hardcore’s vim to electroclash’s instant allure with Dobson’s captivating vocals and guitar work in the spotlight. Tender and vulnerable, “Tiny Threads” is a sweeping anthem for anyone trying to hold anything together—life, love, themselves. “If it haunts me, let it haunt me,” Dobson sings softly over a stillness framed only by bass and noise. She lets her guitar careen into feedback, then steadily sculpts it into something tuneful. It’s a lifetime of anxiety and sublimation, crystallized into 10 seconds. Billboard Heart feels that way at large. Billboard Heart emerged when Dobson trusted her instincts, a personal breakthrough that prompted an artistic one. It is, in turn, the best Deep Sea Diver album yet, a defiant and brilliant exclamation mark at the end of a long period of wandering.