New Wax


Atlanta's Deerhunter crafts beautifully damaged pop songs on their third full-length album Microcastle, which was just made available as a physical release (it's been on iTunes since August). The songs are roughed up with the same garage-rock aesthetic we'd come to expect from the band, but at its core, the album is more direct and contains less experimental art-noise. Cartoonishly tall and sundress-clad lead singer Bradford Cox supplies the eerie vocals on tracks like the mesmerizing piano-laden "Green Jacket," which bleeds seamlessly into "Activa." The trance-inducing first two-thirds of the album floats by dreamily until the album picks up with "Nothing Ever Happened." Easily the most single-worthy track on the album, the song is a straightforward romp built on a deep-toned bassline and dirty guitars. As an added bonus to those who purchase the album, the previously leaked Weird Era Cont. will serve as a bonus disc. While perhaps not as immediate or unified as Microcastle , the bonus disc's psychedelic nuance offers an interesting contrast to its counterpart's overall feel. Taken as a whole, the pairing of these albums solidifies Deerhunter as one of the more intriguing and complex bands around. -- Capt. Obvious