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Halcyon Digest is an eagerly awaited album. In the time between Microcastle/Weird Era Continued and the latest effort Deerhunter have released numerous free EPs and mixtapes available from their blog.
Bradford Cox also brought out a solo LP under the moniker Atlas Sound which was, by all accounts, phenomenal. I’m not sure where they get the time to release music at such a constant stream and how their label (4AD) lets them give away so much music but nobody is complaining.
Perhaps they recognize the future trajectory of music marketing is to give away teasers to keep the punters interested between fully published offerings thus building/maintaining an avid fan base.
Halcyon Digest is much cleaner in production than previous offerings and benefits greatly from giving it the headphone treatment.
Cox’s voice is soaked in reverb, guitars have short and sharp delay and this all generates their trademark haunting sound.
It takes about 4 or 5 tracks to really build up steam with the first half populated by slower and at times softer songs but by the time Memory Boy arrives midway through the record it is clear that they have not lost the ability to craft anthemic tunes.
7 minute closer He Would Have Laughed showcases Bradford Cox as a truly special songwriter and is the icing on the cake of a wonderful 45 minutes of music.