Word: soundness
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...Legos,” the newest psychedelic pop-rock album from Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox under his solo project moniker. Fusing acoustic guitar chords, haze-like ambient synth, trippy electronic beats, and a yin-yang of light and dark tones, Atlas Sound succeeds in escaping the ill effects of the dreaded sophomore slump, creating a lively, relaxing, musically adept and diverse second solo project. With an ideal balance of fast and slow, poppy and downer, “Logos” is a commendable addition to Cox’s already impressive body of work...
...Atlas Sound has been Cox’s baby since its birth back in 1994 when, in sixth grade, he bought his own cassette karaoke recording machine and began making music. Using combinations of voice, guitars, electronic bass, and drums, Atlas Sound created a unique sound—a cross between the blurry trip-inducing buzz of the Flaming Lips and mind-bending Radiohead-esque vocals and electro-acoustics. For Cox, Atlas Sound has become his outlet for more personal electronic explorations...
...featuring sparse notes above middle C, screeching vocals, and slow tempo. “The Light That Failed” possesses progressively louder synthesizer screeches, distorted whispers, and a lack of any true melody, chorus, or lyrics; a repetitive guitar riff, rooted in minor chords, plays over a background sound that calls to mind water dripping from a faucet. Though this subtracts from the track’s overall musicality, these dark motifs balance the upbeat songs which come later, making the album more effective overall...
...rest of the album. “Sheila” continues this racy flow with actually intelligible lyrics, unlike the mumbles that filled most of Atlas Sound’s first album. Oddly enough, though, these lyrics drift back into the dark and mysterious realm even as the sound remains accessbily poppy; “Sheila, we will die alone together,” Cox sings in a deceptively upbeat voice...
...different moods of the album. Specifically, Gibbard’s sensitive and delicately emotive voice is best suited to melancholy and thoughtful melodies. By contrast, Farrar’s deeper, rougher twang enlivens gritty, hard-up tracks, but his nasally drawl drags down slower paced songs, making them sound whiny, not wistful. On the whole, this album, though fortified by a few well-crafted tracks, fails to adroitly engage its source text and the vocal talents of its creators...