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.

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.

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.

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.