Deerhunter - Microcastle Review (In Real Time)

Inspired by the Deerhunter blog debacle that unfurled before everyone’s eyes in real time last week, I’d like to review the new Deerhunter stereophonic delight Microcastle also in real time. Microcastle is available now on iTunes, and will be realized in the third dimension on October 28, courtesy of the smartest people alive - Kranky Records. Mashin’ play…

“Intro” (1:21) - I was hoping for a fun sketch or the like - ya know, somethin’ similar to the opener “Recognize” off of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Nigga Please. But no, this intro serves as a prophecy that Microcastle might be… egad, indie pop (as Fluorescent Grey was sorta suggesting). I hope not. There are pretty cool, fleeting, subterranean samples floating in and out of this instrumental though, so maybe we’re in the green.

“Agorphobia” (3:22) - The song begins with a Terror Twilight vibe. Catchy, decidedly sloppy, and vastly different than Cryptograms. This is Microcastle’s “Strange Lights.” BC wasn’t kidding about the whole “I wanna play around with pop hooks” nonsense he was writing on the Deerhuntertheband dot Blogspot dot com biz.

“Never Stops” (3:04) - Probably the most familiar song to people who, for whatever reason, spend time reading music blogs. Great pop melodies again. Luckily, what keeps this from being bumped at prom is the very distorted, distant guitars that sound like they were recorded from an AM broadcast then overdubbed. Very cool tone, and it keeps the track disorienting.

“Little Kids” (4:22) - All doubt about Microcastle was just crushed. “Little Kids” is utterly celestial. Pure, unadulterated, radiating joy. My favorite songs tend to start simplistically and all pianissimo, then rise in emotion (and guitar tracks) to the point of critical mass and fucking explode. This song begins as a tremolo-saturated, cutesy, high octave guitar riff not out of place on Siamese Dream. BC comes in with increasingly harmonic vocals, panning in and out of the headphone tech. Then at 1:47, low-rumbing fuzz guitars come in heavy and we’re all in big trouble. The band is exponentially growing like that plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Unequivocally, beautifully bombastic.

Look, it’s like this:
Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony in, I believe, the third movement ends with a quintuple fortissimo crescendo (fffff) - horrendously loud. And that’s pussy shit to Deerhunter.

At 3:36, Bradford and Friends are clipping the shit out of their soundboard, because they can. Nothing but white noise - so loud that it doesn’t exist. “Little Kids” is the best shoegazing song that is not actually shoegazing I’ve ever heard. I’m smitten with the shitton of tambourine, too. Gonna listen to this again.

“Little Kids” (4:22) - My volume knob is now at the 4 o’ clock position, ready for “Little Kids” to provoke collateral damage again. This is going to hurt.

“Little Kids” (4:22) - I have that same feeling I had when I heard Animal Collective’s Strawberry Jam insofar as thinking “yeah, this is decent enough.” Then “Winter Winter Wonderland” came on and my brain turned into a cottoball. The timbre of the shimmering vocals, along with the frighteningly fluctuating bass line, is retardedly enchanting and gorgeous. But this song is also so brutal that I feel dirty, and the shower won’t wash it off. Don’t trip over the shattered guitar chords strewn about the room. Hitting the back button again.

“Little Kids” (4:22) - “To get older still, to get oooolduhhh stillllllll”

“Little Kids” (4:22) - FUUUUuuuucccck

“Little Kids” (4:22) - Hyp. Notic.

“Little Kids” (4:22) -

“Little Kids” (4:22) - I need to move on or I’ll never finish this.

“Microcastle” (3:40) - The title track brings you back down and provides the sharpest turn in the album yet. Sparse guitar chords, reverberated vocals, and not much else. The song evokes a slow ’60s ballad feeling for the vast majority of the movement. Then a sudden, quick distortion burst that Mogwai would do just to fuck with you.

“Calvary Scars” (1:37) - This is not an interlude. Clearly drawing a line in the sand between this album and the sophomore effort again, whereas Cryptograms would’ve taken this chance to do some drone examinations and zone-out time, “Calvary Scars” is a fully sweeping song replete with Spanish guitar, bells, piano, and phased vocals. Kinda folky. Kinda elegiac. Kinda awesome.

“Activa” (1:49) - Seamlessly continuing the mood from “Calvary Scars,” “Activa” takes full advantage of the space available around it. Super haunting, like “A Ghost Story” from the Atlas Sound record.

“Nothing Ever Happened” (5:50) - Second best track on the album. Mid-tempo, cosmic, triumphant kraut rock groove with an almost psych-punk punch straight outta 1992. The guitar fuzz is so enveloping, I feel like I’m listening to fleece. Was that simile stupid? Regardless, Bradford Cox is slaying me with the mechanical, calculated, trenchant bridge. Transient.

If Lightning Bolt were a pop band with vocals, they would sound like this song, at least in tone and crazed composition. The closing 2/3 of the song is so focused, bouncy and driving that it makes your eyes dart. It’s one of the few times you’ll hear a psych-influenced garagey band really jam out, but with total restraint (sorta like moments on Murray Street) and absolutely NO aimless an/or stupid guitar noodling. Comparing this to Can would be a stretch, but there’s some old lore that suggests that Can, when performing live, could focus their energy and precision so sharply that audience members would actually vomit. Supposedly this is true, and this song proves that Deerhunter also has this power.

“Saved By Old Times” (3:30) - Blues? Really? Well, not really blues. But a swingin’ guitar riff dominates this song’s initial sonic milieu. Coupled with reverb-soaked vocals, fans of The Tower Recordings and MV & EE will be stoked. The track takes a well-executed, feathered change in direction as the band returns to the repetitive guitar noddling and krautish driving rhythm that defines Fluorescent Gray’s title track.

“Neither of Us, Uncertainly” (5:25) - Despite the ominous structure, BC’s still comin’ correct on this whole ’60s vocal pop thing that, I think, gives Microcastle a very, very unusual sound.

“Twilight at Carbon Lake” (4:24) - This is the most traditionally “psychedelic rock” sounding song on the album, with all the normal fixins in tow - reversed loops, rapid-fader effect-laden vocals. Flood gates are opened and Gabriel sounds his trumpet at just the right now. The kickdrum and snare hit brutally in unison, rides crash, and Big Muff gain is ridin’ high. This is the sound The Helio Sequence has been trying to score for a long time. A better version of the title track, “Twilight at Carbon Lake” is a lovely little apocalyptic ending to an album that isn’t as much of a joyride as it is a journey.

Overall, this is a better album than Cryptograms, which I was not expecting despite being a huge Deerhunter fan. In many ways, it’s more accessible, as there’s a more defined pop-focus throughout. But in other ways, it’s not as accessible. You can turn on Cryptograms and sink in your comfy chair and let time pass. Microcastle creaks and twists, turns sharply almost every other song, and runs a serious exercise in experiments between soft and loud. It’s a fuckin’ shapeshifter. Microcastle progressively becomes a more remarkable album, as well. While the first three songs sound like a weirded-up indie rock band, “Little Kids” violently thrusts Microcastle into the Van Allen Belt. The results are sick.

Coming next time — Weird Era Cont. review, which won’t be in real time. But I am currently listening to it. It, too, is pretty phenomenal. More on that later. Protip: Weird Era Cont. is not the ying to Microcastle’s yang. Both are equally pop, equally experimental, and completely complementary, though Deerhunter will play with genres on Weird Era Cont. like you play with Legos. Look for that tomorrow or so.

This is only the third time in this calendar year that an album burned by temporal lobe to the ground. The first was when I finally gripped the Left Banke anthology and when I was subjected to the Cloudland Canyon jam hive.

Fagen-Becker Rating for Psychedelic Quality:

MP3 :::
Deerhunter - Little Kids
Deerhunter - Nothing Ever Happened