Deerhunter
Halcyon Digest
4AD
September 28
By Matt Kiernan
After gaining major success through 2008’s Microcastle, praised by critics and fans alike, Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest shows their new level of comfort within the studio by retaining their sonic indie rock aesthetics and ambient stream-of-conciousness songwriting, while tackling the idea of a themed album.
Themed albums can be difficult for any band to record considering the commitment it takes to focus on one central subject, but Deerhunter’s choice of concentrating on the joys of discovering new music is a topic that has been held close to the band members’ hearts throughout their time together.
The opening track “Earthquake” and “Don’t Cry” seem to be further instances of lead singer Bradford Cox battling his memories of being a young kid locked in an empty house with no family and wishing he had a friend to talk to. If “Earthquake” is the slow introduction to what is to come, “Don’t Cry” is surely the polar opposite by being one of the best melancholic rock songs on the album.
Perhaps the biggest love-for-music anthem on the record is “Revival,” with its positive instrumentation and lyrics about having a musical epiphany that take a turn for the worse toward the end.
The most impressive track has to go to the finale “He Would Have Laughed,” a song dedicated to punk-rocker Jay Reatard who passed away in January. Its complex wording that is difficult to read and eight-minute length seems to discuss the boredom that occurs when a person gets older, but may hold multiple interpretations.
What makes Halcyon Digest have an underlying sadness is that much of the lyrics tells of finding a new friend, a reinterpretation of Cox’s memories as a child when his so-called new friend was music, and not a real person. The beauty of hearing new bands was a comfort to him when he had no one else to rely on.
Halcyon Digest proves Deerhunter is always looking to move forward rather than backward, not choosing to recreate the magic of their past album, but coming up with new concepts and ways of exploring their original sound.
