Review Summary: Pipe and slippers proves a good look for Deerhunter
There comes a point in every long serving band's career to admit they're no longer in possession of the tightest buns on the block and are forced to embrace a new career stage; now part of the establishment it's time for them to hold up their hands and repeat the mantra 'we've released nearly as many albums as Led Zeppelin' over and over again until it sinks deep into the bones. Musical middle-age has come. This is the period that really separates the 'never more in command / masters of their destiny' wheat from the 'auto-pilot / locked in a ruinous career slide' chaff. Awful words like 'maturity', 'progression' and 'legacy' start appearing in reviews; the rules of the game have changed and it's time to get with the new program or suffer brutal ignominy, death or worse (the dreaded critical reevaluation).
Led Zeppelin are a great career barometer, album four saw them peak in terms of influence and after this they entered a stage of legacy building, their next two albums cementing their reputations as one of the greatest rock acts of all time. A quick roll call and we see a lot of the current crop of rock and indie acts approaching this same stage; some are coping better than others. Queens of the Stone Age had a near-fatal wobble then rallied with a career saving sixth album that was almost comically 'mature' compared to their earlier work. Arcade Fire made a play for their legacy early dropping a very conventionally 'classic' sounding third disc before falling back on an even more cliche stunt with their next release, the experimental double album; time will tell if their legend is assured. Meanwhile The Strokes show just how badly it can all go wrong, they've only released five albums but are already in a terrible way and it's effectively goodnight for them being considered more than a 'one album wonder' act when the dust settles on their playing days.
Depending how you count them Deerhunter are releasing 'Fading Frontier' as either their sixth or seventh full length album and there's no escaping the fact that this band's youthful stage is now way back in the rear view mirror. Always an act obsessed with ageing and decline the band perhaps unsurprisingly seem to be better prepared than most to embrace their position as established elder statesmen; it's almost unreal to find that 'Fading Frontier' sounds even more comfortably mature than the aforementioned '...Like Clockwork'. This music's positively gift-wrapped for radio and if Bradford Cox hadn't taken such great efforts to wave his freak flag so high in the past these songs would already be primed to replace those from The Strokes and MGMT on commercial playlists. As it is the band's reputation and history will probably count against them, as will with the fact that there's still a few too many nods to the dark and the surreal buried just under the surface of their work; it's highly unlikely Deerhunter are about to explode into a global smash. The conclusion to draw from the approach taken here, considering the band are fully aware they aren't Billboard pin-up material, is that they've delivered their most immediately satisfying album for themselves and their existing fan base.
Of course this is all relative, 'Fading Frontier' is still instantly recognisable as a Deerhunter album and by that distinction sports the familiar woozy and disconcertingly hallucinogenic aesthetic listeners have come to expect. In particular 'Ad Astra' and 'Living My Life' boast layers of fragmented and blurry sounds that bring to mind music boxes slowly melting in the sun. The album feels closest in spirit to 'Halcyon Digest' and this is further reinforced by 'Leather and Wood' adopting the role of deranged twin to previous Cox ballad 'Sailing'. 'Breaker' is the crowning jewel here, as close to a perfect pop song as Deerhunter have yet recorded, and by itself goes a long way in helping beef out 'Frontier's standing among the band's discography; a show of hands please for those who believed this band would ever write a radio-friendly chorus of such purity and then deliver it totally straight.
Deerhunter are one of very few acts who successfully balance writing traditional albums to sound excellent through headphones and also experimenting wildly when playing the same songs live; for a band labelled as 'indie' Deerhunter's guitar chops could give a lot of rock and metal acts a run for their money on stage. 'Fading Frontier' is a distinctly mellow affair but it's highly unlikely this equates to an overall softening of the band's approach and it's hard to stop yourself from re-imagining 'Snakeskin' or 'Duplex Planet' sped up, twisted and extended into the realms of total guitar abandon in a live setting. That the band have chosen to present these songs in such a carefully poised fashion is revealing and strongly hints that here is a band with one eye on their overall legacy; for as long as they keep filtering their songs through slyly tweaked approaches they will avoided stagnation. Out of the current crop of artists operating in this stage of their careers you wouldn't bet against Deerhunter being the one's to definitively cement their greatness in the coming years.
