Frontman Bradford Cox leads Deerhunter down yet another unforeseen path of sonic amalgamation, and this time around its chameleonic shape looks nothing like their trademark indie delicacies. The familiar finished polish has been stripped bare and injected with steroid masculinity.
Whereas previous albums Halcyon Digest and Microcastle summoned listeners into a glistening, heavenly realm, Monomania thrusts you to a dingy downtown bar and throws you onto the curb. It’s as if the five-piece has transitioned from being the deer, to becoming the hunter.
This change in aesthetics is unexpected and possibly polarising, but the American troupe’s tough new brand of self-described “nocturnal garage” is just as compelling as their whimsical past – if only for antithetical reasons.
‘Dream Captain’ and ‘Penscacola’ masterfully balance avant garde and accessibility, while the glam-infused garage of ‘Leather Jacket II’ is so boisterously raw it enters the categorisation of lo-fi.
Layers of distorted electric guitar chords combine with snaring drums and warped vocals to create a giant wall of powerful static.
The brash, charged energy eventually climaxes with the addictive title-track. It self-combusts mid-way into a cleansing extended breakdown that feels utterly cathartic when the electricity fizzles to black.
However, it’s not all about leather jackets, flickering neon lights and testosterone. The album’s introspective thematics of betrayal and self-loathing at times give way for their cleaner sound of old.
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‘T.H.M’, ‘Sleepwalking’ and ‘The Missing’ reminds us that Deerhunter’s gorgeous simplistic melodies and deeply provoking lyricism is still perfectly in tact beneath the blaring distortion.
Monomania might not initially feel like a Deerhunter record, but despite their reincarnation as a quintessential Americana band, the band’s fundamental essence will eventually come through.
