DEERHUNTER: HALCYON DIGEST

[rating:4]

Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest

Label: 4ad Records

Release Date: September 28, 2010

It’s rather difficult to keep track of all the indie bands with “Deer” in their name these days. Deerhunter is a venison-inflected troupe that has managed to escape me over the years. Walking into Halcyon Digest, their much-lauded new album, I carried a tabula rasa of impressions never having heard a note of music from the Atlanta, GA four piece. Renowned for their mix of indie pop, post punk and shoegaze, Deerhunter has released two EPs, two LPs and even gone on hiatus in their decade long career.  Halcyon Digest is their jump back into the fray.

Out of the gate “Earthquake” mixes a pretty yet thin acoustic guitar sound with an indie rocker’s idea of dub-influenced percussion.  Ambient support by ethereal vocals immediately deepens the song’s texture, a theme running strongly throughout the album. While many of the song structures initially come off as relatively standard indie pop/rock fare, digging aurally deeper yields enchanting results. “Don’t Cry,” offers a crunchy fuzz-tone guitar sound and the first of many moments that easefully pay homage to 1950s girl groups. As the band coos, “Come on little boy/I am your friend/And I understand the pain your in…/Oh boy/You don’t need to cry/You don’t need to cry your eyes out/You don’t need to understand the reasons why-o-why-o-why-o “ they deftly mix the hipster angst of the twenty first century with the accessibly sweet arrangements of The Marvelettes’ tender ballads. Electronic effects cloaking the vocals add further depth to this creatively eerie juxtaposition. “Basement Scene” is perhaps the album’s most resonant example of this girl group vs. shoegaze sound. ‘”Dream, a little dream all about the basement scene/I don’t want to wake up/I don’t want to wake up/I don’t wanna wake up, no” the band sings amidst a haze of electro-acoustic air.

First single “Revival” carries this pattern of fully fleshed out structure further.  There is a simple vs. dense dichotomy occurring, where the supporting instrumentation expands outward but remains warmly tucked inside a pop framework. “Memory Boy” fantastically recalls the late 60s psych-garage pop of The Pretty Things inside an echo chamber. Halycon Digest’s meticulous organization is rock solid, each note ideally placed yet the sum of these interlocking patterns is much greater than the individual playing, a mark of quality song writing.  “Desire Lines” is a prime example of this artful pop, nothing terribly exciting seems to be going on but the song burns with an rising fervor into a mini-crescendo. “Helicopter” adds dubby hand claps to an effected acoustic guitar and lush vocals for an enchanting flourish.  The album closes with the hypnotic lament “He Would Have Laughed”.  A sprawling ode, seemingly to a lost friend, Deerhunter glazes the song with shimmering, simple grooves and a captivating acoustic guitar loop.  “I won’t rest till I can’t breath/I can’t breath with you lookin’ at me/ I get bored as I get older/ Can you help me figure this out”. There is a depth of anesthetized longing inside the song’s vocal performance that carries it away as the tempo slows down. Halycon Digest finishes in a wash of atmospherics and acoustic guitar, a mellow, forlorn triumph.

-Chris Calarco