Artists from Marcel Proust to Emily Dickinson to
Brian Wilson have done some of their best work as shut-ins; add to that list
Deerhunter's Bradford Cox, whose lifelong battle with Marfan syndrome led him
to take up amateur recording at an early age. Cox turns out music at a
ridiculously prolific pace, often posting several songs a week on his blog
under the name Atlas Sound. Of course, with such a huge catalog of
self-released work, an Atlas Sound full-length seems almost beside the point.
But while Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel doesn't radically differ
from those previous releases (a clutter of electronic beats, synth-pad
textures, music-box samples, and heavily reverbed layers of guitars and vocals
still suggest a bedroom-pop auteur who doesn't know when to quit tweaking), Cox
obviously put his best tracks aside for his official debut. Fans of
Deerhunter's sinister narco-rock may be surprised at how airy these songs
feel—where Deerhunter is Fluorescent Grey, Atlas Sound is all
gauzy, cotton-candy pink, full of swirling, repetitive melodies reminiscent of
Too Pure acts like Seefeel. As is often the case with that genre, certain songs
feel aimless and in dire need of an editor. But when they coalesce (as on the
tender lament "Recent Bedroom" or the gentle Jesus And Mary Chain pop of
"Ativan") it creates a beautiful, truly immersive world tailor-made for hiding
and healing.