Another Deerhunter review

Microcastle
/ Weird Era Cont.
Deerhunter
4AD / Kranky, 2008
5 stars

It’s been a bitter-sweet year for Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox. In May, Microcastle leaked on the internet - a full five months before its official release. Then, about a month ago, as he was preparing for the album’s physical release, Cox accidentally leaked the album’s ‘secret’ second disc Weird Era Cont., as well as an unfinished Atlas Sound (his solo side-project) album slated for release in 2009. Oops. Well, whether you’re hearing it for the first time now, or you listened to it too much in May and are only re-discovering it now (like yours truly), there’s no denying that Microcastle is a cut above. Not just a fine indie-pop album with experimental rock, shoegaze, ambient and doo-wop elements - it’s actually two of them. The upbeat, three-in-one rocker Nothing Ever Happened is the most obvious ‘single’, but surrounding it are so many other great tracks (Agoraphobia is a gorgeous – if somewhat disturbing - guitar lullaby, and closer Twilight at Carbon Lake is like an Everly Brothers song drowned in reverb) that you’re best off playing the whole lot in order. And that’s just the first disc. These guys could have easily held onto Weird Era Cont. for a few months and released it as an album in its own right – and a bloody good one at that - but Cox and co have that much output that you imagine they’ll probably have another album ready by then anyway. This will be very, very hard to top for album of the year.

Artwork: A
This album, and its artwork, is so hard to fault that it kind of pisses me off.

Published in mX, Thursday November 13, 2008.

Haunted Castle

I originally posted this review back in June, but seeing as the album was finally released and given a proper album cover this week, I thought I'd update it.

Microcastle
/ Weird Era Cont.
Deerhunter
Kranky, 2008
4.5 stars

The second side of last year's excellent Cryptograms (possibly the best 16-and-a-half minutes of music released by any band in 2007) left listeners hanging. The album's tumultuous recording process resulted in contrasting shades of stifling dark and bright light, but thankfully Microcastle picks up where Hazel Street, Cryptograms' dreamy climax, left off. Opening with an Intro that sounds like the Flaming Lips covering Pink Floyd, the distorted guitars and straightforward drumming haven't actually changed much at all, but the band don't spend as much time in a fog of guitar noise stalking their prey - they go straight for the kill with pop-guns blazing. The ambient psych-pop leanings of singer Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound project are all over this album, though the subtle sampling of Let The Blind (...) has been replaced with some beautiful reverb-soaked instrumentation. The driving guitar-rock of Nothing Ever Happened, the spacey blissed-out Green Jacket and self-proclaimed 'doo wop' closerTwilight at Carbon Lake are standouts. Cox is this year's Noah Lennox - his releases both solo and with-band are sure to see him with both feet straddling the top rungs of this year's best-of lists. But let's face it, releasing two great albums in a year is just slack, isn't it. Enter Weird Era Cont., Microcastle's 'secret' second disc. Remember that episode of the X-Files where that guy had a little brother that lived inside him and only came out at night? Yeah, well Weird Era is kind of like that. Kind of. It's not as good as its big brother, but it should certainly not be ignored. To be honest, had these guys hung onto Weird Era for another six months then released it (or uploaded it onto an unsecure file-sharing server) as a set of Microcastle B-sides - or an entirely separate album - it would have stood up just as well.

Artwork: TBA A
Can't wait to see what they come up with for this one. After giving us a couple of different type-based designs and another interesting one combining a castle and some flowers, it seems that the band decided they needed to do something new for their masterpiece's physical release, and so we have this version. I actually really like it. The photo (is that Cox with long hair?) is nice, and really hints to the shoegaze aesthetic of the album. And, thought it probably didn't even need the skull/eye thing, it's a nice subtle touch. Top marks.