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\n\tSome artists have to be shamed into speaking out about current atrocities. Deafheaven<\/a> can\u2019t stop themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a very easy thing to acknowledge,\u201d frontman George Clarke says of the wars happening around the globe. \u201cI think if anything, speaking it plainly makes everyone understand how devastating the casual nature of it is to begin with. It should be spoken of casually because it\u2019s very much happening. I guess denying the truth will eat you alive at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe metal band captures the current era in their new EP, At Work in the Fields of the Bomb<\/em><\/a>, a surprise release out today. The album follows their 2025 LP Lonely People with Power,<\/em> which also deals with tyrants and war-mongers. Still, the EP is meant to stand on its own. \u201cThere\u2019s a bit of thematic continuation, but these EPs are also at the same time side quests,\u201d Clarke says. \u201cIt\u2019s very much its own thing. The idea of power and warfare and all that kind of thing is just more of a continued interest of mine and the band collectively.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe band began thinking about releasing an EP last year. Their first thought was to create a heavier offering than Lonely People<\/em>, which I called \u201ca mixing and merging of melody and metal, pain and poetry\u201d in my Rolling Stone<\/em> review<\/a>. Recorded at Glenwood Studios (where a K-pop band was apparently in the next room), the band made what they describe as their first-ever album produced by a true metalhead: Arthur Rizk, who\u2019s worked with acts like King Diamond<\/a>, Cro-Mags<\/a>, and Blood Incantation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe EP takes its title from Robert Del Tredici\u2019s 1987 photo book about the people involved in the production of nuclear weapons. \u201cI found the book in the library in Echo Park, and was immediately drawn to it,\u201d Clarke says. \u201cIt was work that was made in the 1980s, but still feels appropriate today, that idea that catastrophe is often built from a mundane series of details that you don\u2019t really realize is connected to an eventual undoing.\u201d<\/p>\n \n