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Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

by

Atlas Sound

 
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Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
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Avg: 3.5 (383 ratings)

Beguiling dream-pop from Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox.

  • We Say...

    Review by Nitsuh Abebe

    Atlas Sound might have been presented to the world as the solo "side project" of Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox, but it stands some chance of eclipsing that band, at least among a different class of listeners: sleepier ones, with more free time. This endlessly pretty debut feels like an amalgam of every strain of stoned, dreamy, indie-approved music since the 1960s, whether made on guitars or computers — everything from the druggy languor of the Velvet Underground to the woozy, hypnotic loops and tickly high-hats of the Field, with a very heavy dose of shoegazing and dream-pop tricks from the blissed-out 1990s. Sighing vocals, draggy tempos, washes of reverb; this is stuff you listen to with eyes closed, whether you're filing it next to Pygmalion or Panda Bear.

    But it's not exactly what you'd expect from that, mostly because Cox still provides the same messiness and blurting self-exposure that's all over his public persona. These tales of unrequited love have barbs of discomfort in them, and their sound isn't a pristine, precise kind of dreaminess — they feel a little degraded, like they're coming out of a basement with a fine layer of grit covering the equipment. When Cox is building from classic pop structures, like on "River Card," that grit helps him hit peaks; when he's just slinking through his own fascinating loops, like on "Cold as Ice," it makes for gorgeous plateaus; and when he's zoning out into ambience and drones, like on "Ready Set Glow," it creates the kind of valleys you can laze around in for a while before you've found everything there is to find.

    What's remarkable, for a project put together during breaks from a very busy rock band, is that it really never bores: most every guitar swell and synth pad has something to it, and moves along before you can figure out quite what that something is.

  • They Say...

    Review by Marisa Brown, All Music Guide

    Atlas Sound may be Bradford Cox's solo project, but it's clear after just one listen that there's not much that separates Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel from Cox's main concentration, Deerhunter. The same filtered and treated guitars, tapes, and percussion make and wind their way around in eerie yet lush arrangements as Cox sings repeated phrases that eventually fade out into hushed chords and murmurings. The difference, however -- and it is a difference that means a lot -- is that Cox is much more focused here, and though the album certainly fits easily and well into post-rock, he's able to better control the instrumental meandering that at times would drag down Cryptograms. Instead of acting as the default sound, it represents a conscious decision, a gentle contrast that complements and strengthens the whole, and the attention that he allows his voice (the timbre of which can, as in the warm, Daedelus-esque "Cold as Ice" or the gentle "Winter Vacation," sound downright Björk-ish) allows the more instrumentally focused pieces to acquire greater meaning. The vocals, too, when they exist, are given more priority in the mix, an emphasis that shows what a compelling singer he actually is. "Quarantined," for example, has only two lyrical lines ("Quarantined and kept so far away from my friends/I'm waiting to be changed"), but the subtle emotion that can be heard in Cox's enunciation makes it one of the best and most powerful tracks on the entire album. The album's not faultless: as with Deerhunter, Cox has the tendency to try too hard to be profound (take the title -- or the title track -- for example), wanting so badly to say something important that he sounds trite and forced, and untrustworthy, but when he's able to forget about conveying some kind of meaning and instead focuses on the actual music, his message -- one of pain and love and feeling lost, of trying desperately to understand -- is undeniable.

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