Kranky
2008
Weird Era Continued
About This Album
The narcotic drones and fragmented art punk Deerhunter explored on Cryptograms made the album a love-it-or-hate-it proposition for many indie rock fans; where some heard eclectic expansiveness, others heard incoherent experiments. Microcastle, the band's first album with guitarist Whitney Petty, brings together the disparate elements that made Cryptograms fascinating and frustrating, adding a little more pop and quite a bit more studio polish (this album was recorded in a week, as opposed to the two days it took to lay down Cryptograms). Deerhunter still change from gentle to storming at a moment's notice, as on "Microcastle" itself, which drifts along like a slow-motion surf rock ballad, then catches fire about two-thirds of the way through, and the album's middle stretch of songs is just as lulling as Cryptograms' opening suite, but a lot more melodic. These fever-dream moments are punctuated by pop songs that are as crystal clear as they are warped. The trippy innocence of '60s psych pop is a major influence on Microcastle, especially "Little Kids"' jangly guitars and sparkling strangeness, and the acid pop flashback "Saved by Old Times," which is slinky and mischievous enough to be a spiritual cousin of Donovan's "Season of the Witch.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10)

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