I don’t believe anyone could dislike Fading Frontier, the latest release by the Atlanta-based group Deerhunter.
While it definitely doesn’t rank among their best releases nor their most creative releases, it’s an absolutely rock-solid entry in a continuously impressive catalogue of melodic, guitar-driven rock music.
Deerhunter are, at face value, a rock band. I winced a little bit when I wrote that, because rock music these days is a sort of umbrella term that covers such a diverse collection of genres. It can be easy to feel confused when you listen to a Deerhunter song and classify it under the same genre as something like AC/DC or The Black Keys. Make no mistake, they sound nothing like that.
Really, Deerhunter are a group that make some absolutely mesmerizing songs through the creative and collaborative guitar work from Bradford Cox and Lockett Pundt. Collaborative is the key word here—Deerhunter eschews the idea of rhythm versus lead guitar and works instead by alternating back and forth, creating stunning melodies based around their entwining guitar work.
Fading Frontier continues this trend, but takes their music into much more pleasant territory than Deerhunter fans may be accustomed to. This collection of songs is perhaps the warmest and most welcoming collection in their catalogue, recorded and produced as if from a sun-baked studio looking out on a beach somewhere in California. This concept is interesting, considering it is the follow-up to perhaps their darkest and most aggressive record, 2013’s Monomania.
To that extent, I would also argue Fading Frontier is the best-produced and cleanest album in their catalogue, which works both for and against the album as a whole. For the most part, Deerhunter have simply never sounded this gorgeous, going to the extent of featuring some lovely harmonizing by Cox and Pundt on tracks like “Living My Life,” and “Breaker,” which, if we’re being honest here, does not sound like the kind of song I would have ever expected from Deerhunter. However, on the track “Leather and Wood,” this aesthetic is used alongside a rather dull and lifeless track which truly feels out of place on an otherwise engaging and energetic record.
Songs like “Duplex Planet” (easily one of the best songs Deerhunter have ever put out) and the lovely “Ad Astra” find the group delving into even more psychedelic territory than they have in the past, which only works to further enhance the warm, sunny feeling surrounding the rest of the album.
Aside from a few pacing issues, Fading Frontier is an exemplary record from an outstanding rock band known for pushing the boundaries of what we can expect from the genre. While it may not be the best record they’ve put out—something I’m sure the band is aware of—Fading Frontier definitely fits perfectly into their discography, presenting us with a more comfortable, nuanced version of Deerhunter than many of us would have expected. There’s no drastic change to their sound, but rather a pleasant tweak applied to a formula that already works.
