REVIEW: Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
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Halcyon Digest is Deerhunter at their most cultivated and pristine. It solidifies their status as a refined indie rock outfit with pop sensibilities hardly ever reckoned with by their peers. Digest, the fourth album from the Atlanta-based quartet, is, in every way, a natural progression for the band.

Deerhunter have dabbled heavily with punk rock and extended ambient guitar figures throughout their celebrated discography, but strangely sound at their most ambitious when they are singing simple, broken-hearted melodies that are unrelentingly catchy and concise. The flip side of the band's sophomore breakout album Cryptograms hints not so subtly at their pop tendencies, while 2008's wondrous Microcastle finds them exploring pop elements even further. Halcyon Digest brings these elements to the forefront, while the protracted guitar jams and the soft atmospherics (their usual tricks of the trade) seem more like afterthoughts.

The best example of this dynamic shift can be found on "Desire Lines." The song clocks in at nearly seven minutes, courtesy of continued, layered guitar noodling. But what retains with the listener is (guitarist and occasional vocalist) Lockett Pundt's syrupy "Oh-wah-oh" chorus hook found only within the track's first couple minutes. This is a stark contrast to what stands out on tracks like "Nothing Ever Happened" from Microcastle, which is a song of similar length and structure, except its melodies merely serve as stopgaps in between punchy, distorted basslines and a fuzzed out guitar solo.

Upon listening to any of the songs on Halcyon Digest, one might get the notion that Pundt and (principal songwriter/vocalist and guitarist) Bradford Cox are switching gears and trying to perfect the art of the vocal hook. "Memory Boy" fits quite a handful of them within its two-minute span. Talk about power-pop -- that tune gives Big Star a run for their money, and then some. And, oh, that staccato bridge! I've been walking the halls of my place of employment singing "He's gone, gone, ga-gone, gone, gone, ga-gone" to myself, ad nauseum, for the past two weeks.

However, Digest, unlike its predecessors, is an album that reveals its flaws with repeated listens. "Don't Cry" works decently as a lead-in to single "Revival," but doesn't stand well on its own, lacking a sense of direction. "Sailing" is a beautiful song (Cox's blissful croon shortly after the three-minute mark sends shivers down the spine) that perhaps would have been a better fit for last year's low-key Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP. In the context of Halcyon Digest it halts the momentum it gathers with "Revival." Granted, the missteps here are few and far in between, but they stick out on an album mostly filled with triumphs.

Second single and song-of-the-year contender "Helicopter" shines as the highlight of Halcyon Digest. Its delicate rhythm and color chords set the mood for Bradford Cox's best vocal ever put to tape and sold on shelves. Never has Cox sang with such clarity and directness, delivering lines like "No one cares for me / I keep no company" with pipes that are very clearly leading the instrumentation instead of hiding behind it. Credit for this may be due in part to producer Ben H. Allen, who also manned the boards on Animal Collective's similarly pop-ambitious Merriweather Post Pavilion. Another standout track is "Coranado," in which Cox sings with a distorted, bluesy snarl reminiscent of 80s Billy Joel, and -- hold on -- is that a fucking saxaphone? On a Deerhunter album? Indeed, it is probably Digest's most out-of-left-field moment, but it's executed so tastefully, one would hope that Deerhunter's continual, natural progression of their craft takes them to similarly exciting places in the future.

BUY: Halcyon Digest came out on Tuesday. You can pick it up on iTunes, here on CD, or here on vinyl.