Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (4AD)Improving and refining what was already a celebrated blueprint of leftfield modern psychedelia, Deerhunter have produced an album which finds them at the peak of their powers. Having tightened up on some of the more ponderous flab that accompanied the otherwise excellent Microcastle/Weird Era, the band’s last full-length, they now seem capable of consistently producing almost straightforward indie rock songs of exceptional quality (‘Desire Lines’, ‘Fountain Stairs’) whilst also perfecting the woozy narcosis (‘Helicopter’, ‘Earthquake’) that is a feature of frontman Bradford Cox’s side project Atlas Sound. Another essential addition to the burgeoning ranks of high class 21st century American esoterica.
