Deerhunter - Microcastle

Dear 1992,

Wow. It’s really been a long time. I bet you’re kind of surprised I’m writing to you at all—I didn’t really know you when you were around, but then, I was pretty busy. I had that gig taping explosives to toy tigers and that other one where I kept buying six soft tacos, no cheese, at taco bell. That was before they had fire sauce. It was just hot sauce then. Remember? In any case, I heard a lot about you after you took off.

1992, I liked what I heard. We really liked the same things—all those neon colors. We both loved it when hip-hop songs had scratchy sampled horns and you couldn’t stop playing those songs where long-haired young white men would just...sort of....smash on the same 3 Goddamn chords. Smash, smash, smash, they would go. Blllllaaaaannnnngggg CONfUsioN LONELYFUCK etc. Man, some of those were sweet. But you have to admit that almost all of them blew.  And their bands would be called like Hogan’s Hobos or Iguanodon or whatever. You remember those guys? They were always from the northwest or some doucher college. Remember the other kind of song those dudes loved? The kind where they’d pick one catchy undistorted guitar riff and then the singer would do weird shit over it? You didn’t like those as much, but later on they became more beloved. El Scorcho. Every other Pavement song. Right? I bet you wish you’d been more into that when it was big.

I’m writing to talk to you about this new band. They’re called Deerhunter. I think you would like them. A lot. Which is weird because, you know, they don’t know you. If they were playing music when you were around, I bet it was Greensleeves on recorder. And yet they’re making me think of you. Not really making me miss you, just making me think of you. That’s the problem. I mean, I still get down with some of those bands you liked so much. See, bands can do that. They can exist in the kind of universe that letters to 1992 exist in. The kind of universe where the only thing that matters is pulling it off. But usually they exist in the same universe that online music reviews exist. The one where just being basic competence is a tall order. That’s the universe Deerhunter lives in, and that’s the universe I’m forced to live in when I listen to their album Microcastle , which pretty much just alternates between BBBllllaaaannng BBBlllannngggg BBBBBBBLLLLLLlllaaaaaaannnNNNNGG and faux-intellectual El Scorcho. It’s like listening to My Morning Jacket, only just as pointless. Actually, is this a My Morning Jacket Album? Hold on.

No, it’s not. That’s too bad. At least they’d have some kind of a gimmick going for them. Kind of a Chris Gaines thing. Let’s wrap this up by saying all the songs are basically uninteresting and of two types: distorty and not. Twenty listens in, I can’t even tell you which tracks suck the least. Forget this album and this band.