Deerhunter

‘Microcastle’

(4AD)

In 2006,

Atlanta’s Deerhunter released their second album, ‘Cryptograms’. It not only set critics everywhere alight but also raised expectations for their follow-up significantly. A couple of years later and ‘Microcastle’ is here, resembling Grandaddy but sadder, all fuzzy warmth and a very American indie twist. It sounds like a dream wrapped up in candyfloss, beautiful but tragic because you know it won’t come true. It sounds like
New York (it was recorded in
Brooklyn), like lying in a park and drifting off on a summer’s day. Yet there are enough electro-shock moments of jolting feedback to counteract the somnambulistic lull, to make it interesting, to ensure the beauty is measured. A real treat. Let it wash over you.

Mischa Pearlman