Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

[La Dispute]

Confirmation in Laneway thread there is a shiteload of Deerhunter fans around.

How does this album compare?

Reckon my favourite Deerhunter album is Weird Era Cont. but this one is slowly catching up.

The whole album is just so mellow and chilled, loving 'Sailing' atm.

Will certainly feature quite high up in my end of year list.

 

[mdizzle]

Halycon Digest was the first Deerhunter album I listened to, loved it from the first listen. Since then I've gotten into their earlier stuff but Halycon is still my favourite, and my favourite album of the year thus far. Looking forward to seeing them at Laneway!

 

[omit]

am very much loving the album. a lot like logos but also very different at the same time

 

[anti_]

yeah this album is amazing.

bradford cox's vocals have really taken off. you notice how in turn it up ****** they seem to try and shrowd his voice with effects, but now...wow, yeah amazing. one of the best vocalists going around. so many ****ing awesome tunes on this album.

its hard to rank their albums, they're all really good in their own way. i'd rate halycon digest/microcastles/wierd era cont/cryptograms all equal 1st and turn it up ****** just a bit below.

 

[The Passenger]

hadn't heard of them till a few days ago and nabbed the new album. very impressive and looking forward to get stucking into more of their music.

 

[Suspense]

it's alright. this review from rym pretty much sums up my thoughts though:


What happened. For five years these guys specialized in a well explored area of music while still making it interesting. Microcastle and Cryptograms, while intrinsically very different albums, still shared the same dark damaged soul that inspired a vague violence cut sideways by hooks and waves of distortion. Now they go ahead and lose all that in favor of a more vapid form of pop. Watered down, samey, regular, neat. The rough edges have been rubbed off in favor of a more precise shiny gloss. Which is cool. Except that they don't really have the backing to make it work. The advance listens for "Revival" had me giddy at the prospect of a pop album; check out that soaring banjo line over tight drum patterns, Bradford delivering some of his best vocals, the whole band meshing with ease. But nothing else matches that glisten and instead fades into a murkier form of pop-rock, like a freshman-formed band doing Microcastle covers.

This is all pretty unfair I guess. They've been progressing towards this direction the past couple years, and its not like these songs are bad. They just lack the fierceness, aggression, the velocity this band is capable of dishing out with the interest of tackling a more broadly exposed area without proper preparation, or fresh ideas, or much of anything that made them interesting to me in the first place.


:-/

 

[La Dispute]

I'm kinda glad they didn't make Microcastle MK II TBH.

As the review alludes to, they've been building to this kind of album for a while. Nice to see a bit of a distinct difference.

 

[HARKER]

Confirmation in Laneway thread there is a shiteload of Deerhunter fans around.

How does this album compare?

All good. Best album to date.