Welcome to Gay-Nerds biweekly review of music made by members of the GLBT community and their allies. With every New Year’s Day comes the realization that I have been spending the past twelve months living in the mid 1990’s, feeling somewhat guilty about not keeping up with current music. There’s always a week where my hard drive weeps due to the incessant acquisition of new music. Most of it filters through like a hazy dream and I am left grasping a few worthwhile moments before I ultimately forget about it. A few weeks later, the name of the band will pop up and my feelings about their work will intensify, whether lobbing gobs of praise or spewing bile at an entire decade of work. Either way, these feeling are warped well beyond what I may have initially felt when I had actively listened and heard whatever music is debated. These memories are molded into exactly what I want them to be in spite of the reality of the occurrence.
I bring all of this up because the men of Deerhunter spend Halcyon Digest gliding through the bleary etchings of age, memory and time. Entering their second decade together, Deerhunter is about as far removed from the bratty snarl of “Turn it up Faggot” as you could get. Since the loss of Justin Bosthworth, Deerhunter have turned inward, rarely writing lyrics ahead of time while laboring over song structures and demos for ages before recording them. It’s an interesting approach, trying to build a rich backdrop for spur-of-the-moment sincerity. So what happens when they decide to take this approach and magnify and make sense of their past demons and fears?
