Saturday, September 5, 2015

Atlas Sound: Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See, But Cannot Feel

8.0/10

Acts in a similar way to Cryptograms in its merging of the past with a sound that overloads the emotional past with only fragmented recollection of the details, but just with slighter returns.  This may be that Let the Blind doesn't overload the senses the way Cryptograms wall of feedback did, instead it plays into a quitter dream pop exploration of the Deerhunter sound.  This makes for something that feels very intimate and personal, but also lacking any moment of complete transcendence through sound that makes Deerhunter's work so exciting.

Friday, September 4, 2015

Deerhunter: Fluorescent Grey EP

7.8/10

4 songs doesn't quite open the opportunities to meld your mind with a work the way a full album can, but Fluorescent Grey isn't quite trying for the same droning atmospherics that Cryptograms captured. Instead it ultimately amount to them in transit to their more psych pop Microcastle.  And while it may mostly be Deerhunter transitioning all the songs are good enough to have fit wonderfully on Cryptograms back half along with Fluorescent Grey with its drony slur mixing into a pop song making it the obvious highlight and maybe their best song.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Joyce Manor: Joyce Manor

8.1/10

"You were drunker than high school" So, the pop punks seem to have finally made it out of there high school troubles.  Well not exactly, while they have certainly gotten their act together tightening up the band and the songs, they still can't seem to get past the girls who broke up with them.   Its less whiny though which makes it so much more palatable, take that along with some interesting lines about not being able to get their shit together and grow up and depression you have a a group that almost never hits the narcissistic pitfalls of their forefathers.  Tales of drunkery and lost friends, and of course love,    the never out stay there welcomes.  Getting to the point in the end is Joyce Manor's greatest strength. Quickly hitting the most inventive parts of there songs and then ending.  Constant Headache, the longest song on the album and the last clocking in around 3 minutes, sends off the album with an emotionally devasting finally reducing life to a constant headache only to be interrupted by gleaming moments of perfect happiness.  Easily a sentiment that could come from a whiny teenager, but theres a sad acceptance of in the song of this statement in its devastated utterance, and with the guitar powered singalong that concludes the song we reach one of those perfect moments.

Deerhunter: Cryptograms

8.5/10    Must Hear

Ah, so we reach the point of noise drones indebted to a shoegazery of My Bloody Valentine, rather than the sharp pains of Sonic Youth's feedback.  The main difference of course is that this packs a hazy beauty that suits Deer Hunter's psych pop ambitions so much better.  Of course we don't immediately get a true pop song, rather remnants flowing through dense gorgeous feedback loops.  Its like a memory in that effect, producing more of the feeling of the essence of being in the situation than the semantics of it.  As the albums goes on the pinpoints of what makes us feel that emotion becomes clear, but a haze still remains and often elevates that feeling.  Everything is instantly recognizable, the drones feel like shoegaze of the nineties and the songs immediately feel like dreamy psych pop of the past, except memories have crossed causing a beautiful coalescence of ideas.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Deerhunter: Turn it Up Faggot

6.2/10

More in the mood of Sonic Youth noise freak outs than the hypnotic noise of My Bloody Valentine they would adopt, Deerhunter does show their poppier side more clearly here than it would on the front half of Cryptograms.  The noise here means so little though, almost just to hide the songs from normality without ever having any bite the way Sonic Youths breakdowns always held.