Deerhunter
Cryptograms

THE REVIEW

Admirers of the noble Spacemen 3/ Spirtualized lineage, here is a worthy successor: Deerhunter - Cryptograms.

The chronicles tell us of chaos in the recordings and in the singer's mind absolutely worthy and fitting to the band's manic sound. The album was recorded in two different sessions lasting one day each, a year apart. However, instead of two types of composition, we find 3:

1. the drone of reverbs, echoes and ambient sounds without drums: pure floating.

2. the hypnotic trance-inducing rock with attached inaudible/distorted/stripped voice

3. the 60s dream pop/rock flower children style oh yeah

Beyond classifications, the record works, the tracks travel greatly with my particular preference for the sound in point 2. The award for the most shamanic spaced-mans-sound piece goes to "Octet": a psychosomatic and psychogenic ride that will make your head go into a great glorious short circuit. However, the title track and "Lake Somerset" also succeed in their wild repetition of cryptogrammatic minimal riffs reinforced by various noises and sounds.

With "Spring hall Convert" it seems like another album begins: the darkness dissipates and light begins to filter through although it's still a sick light. The pop vocalizations become obsessive and create a sonic vortex that sucks the listener's soul. The full light (always tinged with melancholy to tell the truth) is only with the next track "Strange Light": and from there to the end it stays on sunny sixties pop with a special mention for the beautiful "Hazel st". The ambient tracks, however, are mainly found in the first part and although they are not bad, they are the classic pieces of the genre, decent but a bit taken from the catalog of the good acid post-psychedelic shoegazer.

Despite the genre jumps, the record flows well with the possibility of identifying a reading key in the transition from the claustrophobic and sick atmospheres of the first part to a progressive liberation of emotions and a greater openness in the compositions typical of the second part. Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space.