Deerhunter - Microcastle

Blissful keep-sakes

While still a wholly satisfying listen, 2006’s critically acclaimed Cryptograms suffered from its itchy-feet bipolarity – shifting uneasily between amorphous cumulus and indiepop rides. You couldn’t really place your chips on the new kids until the formative wheels had stopped spinning.

Two years on, and with a few line-up changes and a little media hoo-ha under their belt, the Atlanta-based band have refined their palette, emerging slicker and more self-assured. Microcastle still justifies the group’s self-proclaimed billing as an “ambient punk” outfit, but this is a far more seductive amalgamation of their disparate elements. The sensational Nothing Ever Happened (what a song!) and Never Stops extend an olive branch to all the kids of yesteryear who grew up on a steady diet of Sonic Youth, Pavement, My Bloody Valentine and The Clean, while pieces such as Little Kids and Green Jacket boil down these same rockist strategies into iridescent pools of hazy glory. Microcastle is a glorious confluence of idioms, a surmounting of chaos en route to dream-like galaxies; a defiant pair of rods held up to the faces of naysayers calling for the head of alternative rock. Deerhunter we love you.

4AD | CADD 2822CD

Reviewed by Spencer Grady
<< Back to Issue 356