Bleep

Atlanta rock/pop five-piece Deerhunter return to 4AD for their fifth full-length album. It's a masterpiece of haze-soaked lo-fi guitar and lustrous rolling melodies - as the work of Bradford Cox and the band usually is - but this time around their song craft is imbued with more snarl and a real, gritty punk kick.

Most pretense of prettiness has been dropped. The perky 'Pensacola' beats with a raunchy, bluesy stomp, while 'Leather Jacket II' is a piece of lip curling, unabashed punk shot with squalls of distortion. Cox's voice is at it's most mangled, and the avalanche of scrapping, guitar bleeding noise of the title track is a brilliantly raw moment. Deerhunter though know how to balance things out. "The Missing", with its sprawl of chiming guitars bathed in swooning fuzz sounds like it's shooting for the stars, while the soft, sparse twinkle of "Blue Agent" and "Sleepwalking" are both touching in the feelings of lonely longing they dream up.

The back to basics approach of 'Monomania' might surprise some considering the increasingly refined trajectory of Deerhunter's recent work. But Deerhunter have no doubt made a great record of visceral, outsider rock. The kind of delightful, scuzzy mess you'll hold near and dear.