Then, yesterday I read a review in my student paper about their latest effort Microcastle, clearly written by a new fan of theirs, literally gushing so much with praise it seemed hard to believe that the pages weren't sticking together.
So I decided to listen to the album myself and give it a quick review. So here it is.
Microcastle both starts where Cryptograms left off and completely destroying any memory of it. The opening duo "Cover Me (Slowly)" and "Agoraphobia" help kick start and set the scene of the album in the way every opening track should - by yanking the listener by the scruff of the neck and saying "this fucking album starts right here, listen to all of it right now or piss off".
"Little Kids" insteads takes the old lo-fi touches, with hint of Pavement and Guided By Voices, and constantly builds texture and layer before wandering off into nowhere, possibly never to be seen again. However everything here seems at once so monstrously delicate and intentional that it would take a lesser person to attribute any of this to laziness.
I can't help but be reminded of having to pore over poetry at school and focus on how the "poet's cunning use of a repeated vowel sound to convey their emotions" when it was clearly just dumb luck on their part. However, with this album I can start to see the point. Using somewhat cheesy guitar lines and effects on tracks like "Microcastle" juxtaposed with Bradford Cox's gentle and unconventional vocals is nothing short of genius.
If anything, the one genre which shines through here is clearly shoegaze. Microcastle is basically Loveless with the guitars turned down a bit. Cox's voice is an instrument itself, becoming part of the background and drawing you even further in.
In the words of the review I read, it really is an album to turn up loud an enshroud yourself in.
8.5/10
Microcastles is out now on 4AD records in the UK.
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