Microcastle is the third album by Deerhunter. The album was recorded over the
course of one week in April 2008 by Nicholas Vernhes at Rare Book Room Studios
in Brooklyn.
Unlike Cryptograms, the band decided to forgo heavy utilization of effects
pedals. Throughout the recording of the record, only a number of drum tracks and
the vocals on “Agoraphobia” were treated. Of the musical direction of the
new material, Bradford Cox has said “I'm more interested in the
micro-structure. I want things to be a lot shorter, I don't want there to be
as much long-windedness to it.”
Review
The narcotic drones and fragmented art-punk Deerhunter explored on
Cryptograms made the album a love-it-or-hate-it proposition for many indie rock
fans; where some heard eclectic expansiveness, others heard incohesive
experiments. Microcastle, the band's first album with guitarist Whitney Petty,
brings together the disparate elements that made Cryptograms fascinating and
frustrating, adding a little more pop and quite a bit more studio polish (this
album was recorded in a week, as opposed to the two days it took to lay down
Cryptograms). Deerhunter still changes from gentle to storming at a
moment's notice, as on “Microcastle” itself, which drifts along like a slow
motion surf-rock ballad, then catches fire about two-thirds of the way through,
and the album's middle stretch of songs is just as lulling as Cryptograms'
opening suite, but a lot more melodic.
These fever-dream moments are punctuated by pop songs that are as crystal clear
as they are warped. The trippy innocence of ‘60s psych pop is a major
influence on Microcastle, especially “Little Kids”’ jangly guitars and
sparkling strangeness, and the acid-pop flashback “Saved by Old Times,”
which is slinky and mischievous enough to be a spiritual cousin of Donovan's
“Season of the Witch.” Bradford Cox and company get even more accessible on
the bittersweet “Never Stops” and the excellent “Nothing Ever Happened,”
which lets zigzagging guitars and keyboards tussle over one of
Microcastle's most memorable melodies. Guitarist Lockett Pundt's songs balance
Cox's extremes, with “Neither of Us, Uncertainly” nodding to the
album's hazier moments and “Agoraphobia” blending in with its crisper
songs. When “Twilight at Carbon Lake” swells from a hallucinatory '50s slow
dance ballad into a triumphant storm of guitars, Microcastle proves that
Deerhunter can make music that sounds very different from what they'd done
before, yet still feels of a piece with their body of work. Heather
Phares – AllMusic