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Cryptograms

by

Deerhunter

 
Cryptograms
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Avg: 4.0 (536 ratings)

Three albums’ worth of changes — in just twelve songs.

  • We Say...

    Review by Mark Richardson

    Here on their second album, the Atlanta-based Deerhunter go through three albums' worth of changes in twelve songs. At first, the record's trisected personality is disconcerting — it sometimes sounds like Deerhunter isn't sure what sort of band it wants to be. The title track says they're still the scuzzy, bass-driven post-punk outfit they were on their obscure 2004 debut album. Or are they Spacemen 3-tripping composers of droney instrumentals alternately jagged ("White Ink") and pastoral ("Providence")? Or are they the more conventionally melodic rockers of the album's final third, as exemplified by "Strange Lights" and "Heatherwood," two tracks jangly and tuneful enough to pass for Guided by Voices? But Deerhunter has a surprisingly intuitive feel for these disparate forms and ultimately, a steady undercurrent of dark lyricism binds the tracks to each other. Funnily enough, Cryptograms is a powerful record that is best taken whole.

  • They Say...

    Review by Marisa Brown, All Music Guide

    Deerhunter's first album, the self-titled release from Atlanta-based Stickfigure, was a cacophonous, messy, punk-driven record that banged and pulsated along in the shock and anger after bass player Justin Bosworth's sudden death in 2004. By the time the band set about recording their second album, however, they had added another guitarist, one who focused more on twisting and mechanizing sound, and had calmed down considerably. Because of this, much of Cryptograms meanders about in the experimental realm, where swells and layers matter more than melody or structure. It does make for contrast, this ebb-and-flow against the greater discord of the sung pieces, but these instrumentals don't do enough to actually mean anything. From the "Intro" to "Red Ink" to "Providence" there's a kind of tired consistency played out in the delayed guitar that works to make the record almost commonplace, despite its avant-garde leanings. The more "conventional" tracks, those with words, decipherable or not (generally not), work a little better. More interesting and complex musically, they weave guitar and basslines with driving chords and heavy drums, the same energy before spent on reverb now given to rhythm and composition. Lyrics, courtesy of frontman Bradford Cox, are sparse but intentional, like the repeated muffled yell of "there was no sound" in the title cut, or the echoed call of "I was the corpse that spiraled out" in the nearly eight-minute long "Octet." Cryptograms is pained, sometimes angry, sometimes reflective (and once, in the out-of-place indie pop "Strange Lights," oddly content) music that aims for the provocative and the esoteric. Occasionally, like in the wonderfully spastic "Lake Somerset," Deerhunter successfully accomplish that, but more often than that they overreach and end up hitting something much more ordinary, predictably "experimental" choices in a genre that's supposed to be anything but. Yes, there's a greater recognition of the importance of maturity and structure and intellectualism here, but it's overshadowed by a heightened sense of gravitas and a concern for the unconventional that ends up dulling whatever it is they may have created.

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