REVIEWED: Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter



There is an electric coffee stirrer kept somewhere in a hidden crook of my mind in which I can't quite get my logic around it. Wait, no, hang on a minute. I don't think it's really a coffee stirrer as how the label on the packaging says. What it really is I believe is a diabolical weapon capable of molesting hundreds of underage school girls while destroying youthful ideals of MyVi-driving, futsal-playing douchebags. Some sinister weapon indeed. From what I generally understood of what was printed on the packaging label is that it is a battery-powered hand-held cappuccino maker. You know, if you like your coffee to be quite strong yet creamy and has lots of froth like it's in a rabies-induced fits, then this is the perfect tool for you. So in other words, it is absolutely worthless - but somehow I have one. As a result, I never used it and now it is sitting somewhere, gathering dust.

So, in the interest of the header for this entry, where I am supposed to do a review of Deerhunter's new album, and as usual my almost fetish like love of using everyday things as an analogy, I can report that Halcyon Digest is absolutely nothing like that diabolical weapon. Confused a little bit? Allow me to explain.

The band's last full-length studio album, Microcastle, is a polished and refined product, accentuating on the band's major strength (in creating mesmerizing beauty mired amidst a haze of fuzzy distortion noise). It's a carefully crafted album despite most of the time containing only droning noise that comes in no particular shape or form. It was a major leap forward for the band in terms of delivery and dexterity. Thus, it came as a real surprise when I found out that their new album was almost nothing like all their previous efforts.

For starter, there is this air of clarity hanging about the album - it doesn't sound fuzzed. It no longer shimmers through a blanket of thick fog; everything is as clear as a sunny Sunday afternoon. And when I said sunny Sunday afternoon, this album feels dreamy, probably a bit drowsy, but one that you don't complain about. It's a quality that Deerhunter has successfully retained from all their previous efforts but yet at the same time doesn't sound all that too familiar. It's like meeting an old friend - now fatter, has six children and receding hairline, but the warmth and friendliness is still there.

The album skips gingerly through the opener "Earthquake" before it shudders you to wake with "Don't Cry". I am mentioning the two track because I believe the title should have gone the other way around, if it were to explain the feel of the track, of how the song sounds like. But just when it is starting to sound all too familiar once again, the haze quickly dissipate and disappear entirely with "Revival". It has a hint of Spoon-ish giggly excitement to it, something which is entirely unfamiliar for this peddler of noise rock.

I am tempted to even call this (among) the most intelligent album of the year for one very specific reason - it doesn't allow the band to regress into foolishly repeating itself. There are a number of moments where it does remind listeners to the good old days, like for example "Desire Lines", but because it was sandwiched in between moments of genuine clarity and clearheadedness, it doesn't sound like a continuation of the same story, rather a shift to a new chapter of the same book.

So, once again, how is the album nothing like the coffee stirrer you ask? Exactly - it is absolutely nothing like it in which I can't actually relate between the two to make it as an analogy.