With Microcastle, the Athens, GA quintet Deerhunter step away from the ambient and noisy sprawl that dominated their last album, Cryptograms, and make an album of lean garage rock/pop without discarding their experimental tendencies. The result is their most accessible and compositionally strong excursion to date, one that counters bleak lyrical content with a series of upbeat and consonant songs that make for a unified and intriguing listen.
Microcastle opens and closes with the head-nodding joy of great pop music darkened with '90s alt-rock guitar stylings and spiced with lyrics that describe scenes of confinement, isolation, and apathy. Songs like “Agoraphobia” describe an Orwellian nightmare with clean and hypnotic guitar arpeggios and a sedate, almost blissful sound. “Never Stops” and “Little Kids” get a little louder but remain catchy, well crafted, and musically upbeat pop songs that, once stuck in your head, refuse to get out.
While the first and final thirds of the album counter the desolate quality of the lyrics with pounding pop and garage rock, the middle songs are stripped down, introspective compositions that musically match the existential vacancy of the lyrics. Based around simple piano or guitar accompaniment, ambient sounds, and frail dream-like vocals, “Calvary Scars,” “Green Jacket,” and “Activa” act as a downtempo musical suite. Rather than grinding the album to a halt, this sectionalized approach unifies Microcastle from simply a collection of songs into a truly integrated album. This sense of unity is amplified by Beatlesque “ah ahs" scattered throughout the songs (which also appear buried in the more experimental sounds of the companion disc, Weird Era).
For the most part, Microcastle is markedly cleaner than Deerhunter’s previous excursions. While there is still plenty of drifting guitar distortion, ambient noise, and crunchy-power-chord outtros, most of the processing is reserved for Bradford Cox’s voice, which floats dreamily in reverb over the indie-pop textures. This approach suits the band well: without the wall of sound, the songs and album as a whole develop compositionally as opposed to merely sonically. The songs are kept short (only two break five minutes), and while much of the music has repetitive and hypnotic qualities, the compositions largely avoid noisy superfluity (though there are still plenty of cool noises that manifest themselves over repeated listens through headphones).
The absence of continuous distortion leaves room for other sounds and textures to be heard. “Activa” features delicate reverb-soaked vocals over an acoustic guitar, wind chimes, and various found sounds. “Saved By Old Times” colors the indie rock base with a touch of country blues twang. It also features a humorous and nonsensical rant by Cole Alexander of the Black Lips (which actually adds a lot to the song). “These Hands” adds chugging cello to the clean guitar tones and cavernous vocals before disintegrating to a minute of atonal piano fluttering, which gradually coalesces into a figure that leads into the album’s final song.
Microcastle shows Deerhunter to be more than another noisy and “experimental” indie band in the wake of My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. These are great pop songs that have the edge of great rock songs. At least as importantly, the parts add up to a coherent and very satisfying whole, especially when paired with the more adventurous sounds of the “bonus disc,” Weird Era.
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