Let no one suggest that Deafheaven is a band that fails to live up to its name.

Built around the core of vocalist George Clarke and guitarist Kerry McCoy, the San Francisco unit tends to get filed under black metal, a tag that doesn’t completely do it justice. Clarke’s vocals are delivered in a shrieking howl, his outrage doubly magnified on the band’s recent Sunbather, which fixates on lyrical concerns like unattainable beauty, unattainable wealth, and other miseries of the modern world. Acting as an almost uplifting counterpoint to all this is the shoegaze-inspired six-string work of McCoy, who clearly sees no reason why beautiful can’t be bombastic. What you get, then, with Deafheaven—at the Rickshaw on Thursday (December 4)—is a band that somehow sounds heavenly while it’s deafening you. It’s good to know there is still some truth in advertising.