Deerhunter-Fading Frontier Review

Artist: Deerhunter

Album: Fading Frontier

Label: 4AD

Release Date: October 16, 2015

Website: http://4ad.com/artists/deerhunter

Reviewed By: Cheyenne Heaslet

Music Reviewer

Deerhunter mastermind Bradford Cox isn't afraid of repeating himself, with their new collection, Fading Frontier, the band are looking to get it right even if it takes them a second try. When describing his favourite song on the album, the 50's influenced ballad, "Take Care", Cox has said, "I try to make music that doesn't exist, but that I want to exist." That David Lynch way of thinking makes more sense when you hear the music on Fading Frontier, which is track by track either welcome change, or a step up from their old flavors. While songs such as "Duplex Planet", with its sweet guitar flourishes and chirping organ chorus, or "Leather and Wood" with its slow paced, odd textures, and subtly delayed vocals could have been at home on 2010's Halcyon Digest, the electronic "Living My Life" or the poppy "Breaker" could only exist within the band now.

Deerhunter are once again working with producer Ben H. Allen, who previously gave Halcyon Digest it's signature intimate feel, but is now presenting them as a more accessible sounding product. The two singles, "Snakeskin" and "Breaker" are some of the most outright pop sounding releases Deerhunter have recorded, but under the sheen of production they're still the emotionally raw songs we know them to write. The album opener, "All the Same" sets the tone perfectly as a blend of the old Deerhunter stream of consciousness songwriting with a new aggressiveness that, unlike their last great effort, Monomania, isn't steeped in fuzz or purposely brash instrument breakdowns. It's a more confident sound that doesn't require much effort to be reeled in.

Fans of Deerhunter or Bradford Cox are probably curious how the singer's lyrics would reflect his December 2014 brush with death. Allusions to the accident that sent him to physical rehabilitation are there, but the twist is him rolling with it in what seems like optimism. "Breaker" has him recount the accident, singing, "Jack-knifed on the side street crossing. I'm still alive, and that's something." "All the Same" has a similar outlook toward rehabilitation with Cox singing, "Take your handicaps, channel them and send them back." These kind of revelations seem to be the backbone of Fading Frontier. Bradford Cox has had his low points, but as evidenced in songs like "Take Care", where Cox expresses the need to pull back and find "A place where you found hope", he's now channelling them into something that transcends memory.

Fading Frontier could be about the inability to find a new way of thinking or doing, but from Bradford Cox's viewpoint on the song "Living My Life" it's more like a buffer for fear keeping us from finding a full meaning. The idea that nothing is new or fresh because we already expect it has limited us in our understanding of what makes something truly amazing. Fading Frontier is the excitement we've lost in the next step of progress because of fear and our stagnating demands. With over a decade under their belt, Deerhunter's frontier hasn't yet faded, in fact they are living in their own slice of blazed trail.