Cryptograms

A new stage in the Deerhunter's life

Deerhunter is a five-member indie rock band, formed in 2001 in Atlanta, Georgia. The way to the top of the fame was very difficult, thorny, but so fascinating. What people love most about their music is that it has so unpredictable turnings and so spontaneous thoughts. Having made their creative work more mysterious, Deerhunter decided to show their abilities all over the world and released the new album under the name Cryptograms. Cryptograms is the second full-length offering from Deerhunter. The album took almost two years to finish and was the product of emotional, physical, and financial strain on the group. Cryptograms is the resulting effort, a twelve track release that veers back and forth like a series of wild mood swings, morphing from billowy clouds of ambience to noise-damaged rock tracks and a second half that seems to hone in more closely on psych-touched dance rock tracks. Cryptograms has got something for everyone, and that, tried and truly, is a testament to its digestibility. Cryptograms is something gritty and furious, maybe something religious, but always something desired. Many of the musical critics, just fans of the group and the boys themselves are waiting for that their new work, in which they put their hearts, will be the hit of the new year and that they will approach to the tops of the charts and to the hearts of the listeners.

Cryptograms is a tale of two days

Sometimes, successful art is borne of tragedy and adversity. Sometimes, it is a matter of happenstance. Sometimes the greatest pieces of art are created quickly and spontaneously, and sometimes, they require years of reflection and meditation. Deerhunter's latest album Cryptograms is an odd combination of all of the above. Cryptograms is a tale of two days. Here creates a pervasive sense of inevitable doom across this fascinating and fractured effort. Does album foresee the end of the world? Perhaps, with nearly half of the album filled with ominous sounds and premonitions of our future. The album opens with an intriguing mix of electronic pulses, blips, sirens, and the sound of rushing water. This creepy and disconcerting opening vignette sets the tone for the album, and flows seamlessly into Cryptograms, the first full song. The initial seven tracks alternate between instrumentals filled with chimes, drones, and lulling noise, as on Red Ink, and the cruel poetics and aggressive sound of guitar pickings of Bradford Cox on Spring Hall Convert and Lake Somerset. Then things change… The poppy, peppy, and catchy Strange Lights seems out of place following all of the rubble and gloom, and disrupts the mood. We can find soon that the second half of the album, starting with Strange Lights, is starkly different from the first half, with less ambience and more guitar-driven tracks, along with ruminations on adolescence and loss. Each half of the album was recorded in one day, respectively, and the moods are vastly different on the respective sides. But perhaps the lesson in this dichotomy is that even amidst the doom there is still hope, or at least memories of a time when there was.

Cryptograms is 48 minutes of mysteriously encoded soundwaves

"Rock – not art: rock is a way of conversation between ordinary guys", - said Billy Idol. Boys from Deerhunter proved this statement. They create the music of talk, the music of thought, together with sound of nature. As the title professes, Deerhunter's sophomore album Cryptograms is 48 minutes of mysteriously encoded soundwaves. For those who don't know, a cryptogram is a piece of text encrypted by the replacing of each letter with a substitute letter or symbol. Every cryptogram needs a person to encrypt the message, as well as a person to decrypt the same text. The major question their listeners have for Deerhunter is whether the music represents their search for a cipher or is it meant as the encrypted message. It feels like it's a combination of both. The album is full of flat notes and instruments, pounding bass lines, textured sounds, and enigmatic samples to create a dreary world where the end of time was: no sound/ I had no friends/ I would benefit from no other kids/ I had no dreams. The production is engineered to evoke shadowy images in your mind, to set thinking about our present and future life, and the album ends with the simple yet ominous words about darkness, outside civilizations and endlessness.