Deerhunter
Fading Frontier

Pharoah Sanders, Caetano Veloso, Al Green and Elvis, the death of a dog named Faulkner, Tom Petty, R.E.M., the sunset over Rome, Ligeti, the smell of new cars, Almodovar and Bresson, earl grey, kintsugi, Neruda and Ballard, the Mojave Desert, and much more.

What the common denominator of all this might be should be asked to Bradford Cox, leader of Deerhunter.

The fact is that the result of such factors is "Fading Frontier": 36 minutes distributed over 9 tracks.

A short album, suited for the era of Spotify and YouTube, where nobody seems to have the time (and/or patience) to dedicate themselves to a record in its entirety.

+ songwriting - ambient punk.

This is how the new work of the Atlanta band could be summarized. Deerhunter partly set aside the experimentalisms that characterized their previous episodes to focus on a quest for the song form, but always in their own way.

In truth, this quest had already begun with “Halcyon Digest” (which many consider the band’s masterpiece), but it is in “Fading Frontiers” that Cox's "pop" authorship emerges more prominently, also due to arrangements that are more minimal than in the past.

Permeating the Deerhunter's evanescent frontier is a mild and typically springtime mood, interrupted by the Beck-like funk of "Snakeskin". “Ad Astra”, with nods to Stereolab, confirms Lockett Pundt's compositional skills. “Living My Life” is a skillful mix of jangle guitars and ethereal electronics. In the tail of “Leather and Wood” there are traces of psychedelia updated to 2015. “Breaker” and the closing “Carrion” are the most crystalline melodies.

“Fading Frontiers” is POP, in the most genuine sense of the term. An accessible and positive album: (for newcomers) the ideal way to immerse yourself in the weirdness of Cox’s world.