DEERHUNTER - Fading Frontier

"[Deerhunter's] next move retreats from Monomania's confrontational sound, but not back to the middle. Fading Frontier skips past the group's signature alien dreampop into a pleasingly paradoxical new aesthetic, simultaneously containing the band's most complex grooves and the most placid music of their career. Halcyon Digest producer Ben H. Allen, the man who helped Merriweather Post Pavilion achieve stadium status, is back in the fold, but he and the band scale down their scope this time around, often favoring mood and texture over visceral impact. Our earliest information about the album was Cox's claim that it sounds like INXS, a reference that surfaced again in the 'Concept Map' Cox created to unpack his current influences. And though he might have been joking, there's a cleanness and clarity to the production that resembles the less bombastic side of '80s pop—cue the Tom Petty/R.E.M./Tears For Fears namedrops on the Concept Map. Plus it contains some of Deerhunter's most fascinating rhythmic work; lead single 'Snakeskin' is every bit as funky as 'Need You Tonight,' and doubly demented." - Stereogum