Deerhunter's third album, Microcastle, is sublime
Deerhunter's third album, Microcastle, is their best and most clearheaded.
Published Aug. 26, 2008
For all the music that Deerhunter's Bradford Cox has released over the past two years, either official releases or (many) self-leaked demos, it seems as though he's never been able to outrun his reputation as an attention-seeking juvenile.
His, and Deerhunter's, supporters have hailed him as a savant, a fragile and confused boy who has written some of the most crushing and beautiful songs in recent memory. They also point to his blog, where he has released countless demos and b-sides and interacts directly with his feverish fans, not because that's what "we" do in the 21st century, but because the love he gets back is his water, air and food.
The problem, though, has been that basically no positive piece on Deerhunter (including, obviously, this one) has ever been able to make it more than 200 words without having to mention or explain away what he does when he isn't making music, be it wearing a dress on stage or beefing with bloggers or, infamously, blogging about his and his band's shit. His detractors, on the other hand, have used it all as an excuse to completely ignore him.
<i>Microcastle</i>, Deerhunter's third album, gives us ample reason to shut up and just listen. Over the album's 40 minutes, Cox molds Deerhunter from a good but unmemorable ambient-shoegaze band into one of the best indie bands currently working in pop's outer margins.
The album's first two full songs are arguably the most straightforward the band has ever written, and they set the tone for Deerhunter's most clearheaded and affecting album (they also, successfully, ease the skeptical listener into the album's more difficult middle section).
"Agoraphobia," the album's best track, is a haunting but comforting mellow pop song that sees guitarist Lockett Pundt repeating phrases like "come for me" and "comfort me" over clear and propulsive downstrokes. Its bridge, where a sickly sounding guitar chord made to sound like a synth enters, is arrestingly catchy and pretty.
"Never Stops," which follows, echoes its predecessor's feelings of being trapped both physically and mentally. Its outro, where Cox liltingly repeats the song's title before engulfing his soft, wordless screams in hollowed guitar noise, is the most sublime slice of dream-pop the band has ever recorded.
The album's middle, especially the mini-suite directly at the center of the album, leans closer to the ambience that soaked Deerhunter's last album, Cryptograms. But where those songs at times felt impenetrable and too similar, the three songs here find Cox leaving his emotions bare over pianos and acoustic guitar plucks that sound like samples of classic pop songs.
On the final side's "Nothing Ever Happened," the most torrid and surprising song on Microcastle, Deerhunter sounds like a veteran krautrock band, locking into a strong and seductive groove that evolves into a searing finger-tapped outro from Cox.
As if to remind you that they can still muscle out a flooring hurricane of noise, Microcastle's final song, "Twiglight at Carbon Lake," ends with mountains of sound and guitar freakouts, belying but not undermining the nakedness and clarity that makes Microcastle such a triumph.
When it's over, don't be surprised if you find it hard to pick yourself back up. Microcastle is an unsettling and brilliant album that lingers long after the silence. It's one of the year's best, a dream-pop benchmark that Cox would seemingly never write. Even if he releases it for free, buy it.
