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Avg: 4.0 (83 ratings)
- Date Released: August 13, 2008
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Label: 4AD / Beggars Group
One of the year's most anticipated does not disappoint one bit
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We Say...
Deerhunter are either one of the toughest ambient bands or one of the most ambient tough bands you will ever come across; the difference hardly matters, because the group is so good at being both. After their gritty breakthrough in 2007 with Cryptograms and the wild charge of Deerhunter's increasingly storied live shows, the initial hush and softness of Microcastle might come as a surprise. In "Agoraphobia," Bradford Cox sings softly over guitars that ring and chime almost like R.E.M. This being Deerhunter, though, that mood proves deceiving; the ring quickly takes on sinister tones and Cox gets to singing, with an eerie stoic desperation, "I had a dream no longer to be free/ I want only to see four walls made of concrete."
There's a lot of fantasizing about freedom and constraint here, both in the lyrics and in the strangely nervy take on shoegaze that Deerhunter have made their métier. "Little Kids" offers a comely melody that builds and builds into a vaporous din, and "Nothing Ever Happened" (one the best songs of this year, by far) launches into a raucous motorik krautrock jam, sending out frayed signals of hooks in glimmers. On the whole, Microcastle proves more of a moaning koan than might have been expected, but the intensity starts to bear out with repeated listens, yielding plenty of opportunities to get haunted -
They Say...
The narcotic drones and fragmented art-punk Deerhunter explored on Cryptograms made the album a love-it-or-hate-it proposition for many indie rock fans; where some heard eclectic expansiveness, others heard incohesive experiments. Microcastle, the band's first album with guitarist Whitney Petty, brings together the disparate elements that made Cryptograms fascinating and frustrating, adding a little more pop and quite a bit more studio polish (this album was recorded in a week, as opposed to the two days it took to lay down Cryptograms). Deerhunter still changes from gentle to storming at a moment's notice, as on "Microcastle" itself, which drifts along like a slow motion surf-rock ballad, then catches fire about two-thirds of the way through, and the album's middle stretch of songs is just as lulling as Cryptograms' opening suite, but a lot more melodic. These fever-dream moments are punctuated by pop songs that are as crystal clear as they are warped. The trippy innocence of '60s psych pop is a major influence on Microcastle, especially "Little Kids"' jangly guitars and sparkling strangeness, and the acid-pop flashback "Saved by Old Times," which is slinky and mischievous enough to be a spiritual cousin of Donovan's "Season of the Witch." Bradford Cox and company get even more accessible on the bittersweet "Never Stops" and the excellent "Nothing Ever Happened," which lets zigzagging guitars and keyboards tussle over one of Microcastle's most memorable melodies. Guitarist Lockett Pundt's songs balance Cox's extremes, with "Neither of Us, Uncertainly" nodding to the album's hazier moments and "Agoraphobia" blending in with its crisper songs. When "Twilight at Carbon Lake" swells from a hallucinatory '50s slow dance ballad into a triumphant storm of guitars, Microcastle proves that Deerhunter can make music that sounds very different from what they'd done before, yet still feels of a piece with their body of work.
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| 01. |  |
Cover Me (Slowly) |
1:21 |
|
| 02. | |
Agoraphobia |
3:22 |
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| 03. | |
Never Stops |
3:04 |
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| 04. | |
Little Kids |
4:22 |
|
| 05. | |
Microcastle |
3:40 |
|
| 06. | |
Calvary Scars |
1:37 |
|
| 07. | |
Green Jacket |
2:09 |
|
| 08. | |
Activa |
1:49 |
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| 09. | |
Nothing Ever Happened |
5:50 |
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| 10. | |
Saved By Old Times |
3:50 |
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| 11. | |
Neither Of Us, Uncertainly |
5:25 |
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| 12. | |
Twilight At Carbon Lake |
4:23 |
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12 Total Tracks, 40:52 Total Length
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Credits
- David Barbe - Percussion // David Barbe - Engineer // David Barbe - Wurlitzer // David Barbe - Tape Editor // David Barbe - Guitar (Nylon String) // Joe Lambert - Mastering // Nicolas Vernhes - Keyboards // Nicolas Vernhes - Engineer // Nicolas Vernhes - Mixing // Alex Rose - Images // Cole Alexander - Sound Collage // Bradford Cox - Engineer // Bradford Cox - Design // Bradford Cox - Layout Design // Lockett Pundt - Engineer
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