Microcastle/Weird Era Continued

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Album Description
Here it is, the highly anticipated follow-up to 2007's Cryptograms album which launched the band into the stratosphere of hype. Whether or not that was or is deserved is entirely subjective. Microcastle was recorded over the course of a week at Rare Book Studios in Brooklyn, New York with Nicolas Verhes in April of this year. The album was recorded as a four-piece consisting of Bradford Cox, Lockett Pundt, Joshua Fauver, and Moses Archuleta. 'Saved by Old Times' features a vocal collage by Cole Alexander of the Black Lips, and the album also features two songs with lead vocals by guitarist Lockett Pundt, 'Agoraphobia', and 'Neither of Us, Uncertainly'.

Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

GREAT ALBUM!!! BEST RELEASE OF THE YEAR!!! November 3, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Since 2001, Deerhunter - co-founded by Bradford Cox and Moses Archuleta - have produced three LPs and four EPs worth of astonishing "ambient punk" (their own description), picking up devotees and different musicians along the way. Their mantra - "To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance" (Jean Genet) (Fronted by openly gay and occasionally cross-dressing singer Bradford Cox, Deerhunter have earned themselves a formidable reputation for intense live performances in their native Atlanta).
4AD's first involvement with the band was to release Microcastle, their excellent third album. The follow-up to 2006's acclaimed Cryptograms, it was recorded over the course of a week at Rare Book Studios in Brooklyn, New York with Nicolas Verhes and was created as a four-piece, consisting of Bradford Cox, Lockett Pundt, Joshua Fauver and Moses Archuleta. Most tracks feature Cox on lead vocals except "Agoraphobia" and "Neither of Us, Uncertainly" where guitarist Pundt is the main provider and "Saved by Old Times", which includes a vocal collage by Cole Alexander of "The Black Lips".
The sounds on Microcastle form a lush landscape. Ethereal voices blend into battered guitars and a determined rhythm section.
Microcastle has more fully formed songs and vocals, although Cox's narcotic mumble is generally half buried under layers of reverb, feedback and other guitar noise as well as tape loops and electronica. Just don't look for information about who's doing what in the minimal sleeve notes, and forget about analyzing the lyrics, since Cox seems firmly of the words-as-musical-tools school of song writing. Praise Be!
The relatively gentle Agoraphobia (one of two tracks featuring guitarist Lockett Pundt on vocals) could almost be an early Meat Puppets out-take, while "Never Stops" makes scarifying feedback a thing of beauty like "The Jesus And Mary Chain", with the first of several prettily melodic 'ahhhhh' choruses. The title track goes through a long, languid intro before morphing into a pounding rocker, and there are several spacey, reflective interludes before the metronomic "Stereolab-ish" groove of "Nothing Ever Happened". "Twighlight at Carbon Lake" is a twisted, atmospheric closer.
As the title suggests, things get stranger on Weird Era Continued. Highlights include Operation, with its intriguing tempo changes and cryptically disturbing half-heard lyrics, Vox Celeste, which recalls the muffled lo-fi luminosity of The Clean, and the epic, trancey Calvary Scars 11/Aux.Out. Opening and closing with a kind of mushroom-dazed pastoralism, it's a hypnotically pulsing Krautrock treat dipped in sonic glitter.

4 out of 5 stars

narcotized aural suppository October 29, 2008
5 out of 12 found this review helpful

could be the best Breeders record never made. I like the texture of this record, reminds me of cough syrup hallucinations...the soundtrack featuring early 1960's girl groups. not as trippy as Crytopgrams, but I dig this more
because it fits so snuggly and smells like my grandmother's hand lotion.

4 out of 5 stars

Microcastle October 28, 2008
3 out of 9 found this review helpful

Cryptograms is a strange record, a bad acid trip that slowly gurgles up into a pleasurable wash of euphoria. It takes a while to get to its destination, but when it does, listeners are in for the ride and committed to seeing it through to the end, and it just so happens the end is quite the payoff even if the ride was somewhat nauseating. Microcastle is the logical next step for a band whose lead singer blogs about the nature of his stools whilst releasing a mellow dream-pop album under an offshoot solo-project (Atlas Sound's 2008 debut.) This of course means that Microcastle is likely not what any fan would expect, striking a tenuous balance between the shoegaze of Cryptograms and `50s-style sunkissed pop.

Sadly though, the balancing act on this record isn't perfect, and for every moment of joyous beauty there is one of drab repetition. Mixing Cryptograms with the Atlas Sound debut results in a record that too obviously confesses its goal of making a peaceful, innocuous record, which is exactly what it accomplishes, though unfortunately without the compelling nature of better dream pop albums. With a touch more fire, it would have been a smashing success.

7/10

5 out of 5 stars

Album of the year. October 31, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful

I hear a lot of Lost Souls-era Doves, My Bloody Valentine, and Grizzly Bear mixed into a delicious stew on this record. The vocal harmonies are a touch sweeter as well. If you love those bands (maybe some Blonde Redhead thrown in the pot), you'll very much enjoy this record.

Let's not forget, it isn't about happy things. It's about the true human condition: melancholia. It won't brighten your day, but it will make you feel just fine.

So, grab a beer, sit next to a friend, and let the night slip on by to this record. Then do it again tomorrow.

4 out of 5 stars

Drone, density, sensitivity, fragility November 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I liked "Cryptograms" PIL-type assaults better than its bliss-out comedown tracks. This new CD may, therefore, please listeners who favor the softer side, akin more to Bradford Cox's solo project Atlas Sound. Since I love shoegazing, "Microcastles" satisfied me especially in its later tracks on disc one. These built up to thunderous feedback, and like tracks 3 and 5 on the first disc, showed a fuller band sound that appealed more to me than the many songs that, stripped-down and simpler, seemed more like home demos recorded by Cox himself.

The strongest tunes, as on the previous CD, remain those with a full-on wave of mutilation. They can begin softly, tentatively, before cresting, nearly without you realizing it, into giant splashes of sonic boom. This characteristic of Deerhunter's delivery, to me, shows the talent that they're capable of as a forceful unit, instead of anyone expecting only a Cox-led group of back-up players using the older band's name.

My son heard Jesus & Mary Chain here and there; I heard Grandaddy! The range of influences distorted and sensitive, beyond a less overdriven My Bloody Valentine, does account for the intelligence of the songwriter and his bandmates. The experimental confidence on "Cryptograms" isn't as extended as I'd expected on "Microcastle." It's there, but it ebbs and flows. The record's tracking may account for lulls, especially midway, but these must be intentional to offset the amplified tracks; this same distribution of tone and pace for structure can be heard on "Cryptograms."

There's not many bands an older fan (me) and a younger (my son) can share, and this breadth of vision that Deerhunter's been entering holds promise for their career as a band, rather than a more famous musician and his crew. This cohesiveness, heard best in the elaborate, fully instrumental songs, indicates their potential at its best. I look forward to more songs with this louder, faster, thicker attitude. If Atlas Sound can provide Cox an outlet for his delicacy, Deerhunter to me should provoke him towards more aggressive, denser, and more paranoid (but in a good way!) layers of drone and doom.

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