Release Date: November 4, 2011
Atlas Sound is the solo project of Bradford Cox, perhaps best known as the lead singer and frontman of ambient-punk group Deerhunter. As far as solo projects go, Atlas Sound has a pretty good track record: both of his earlier albums, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel and Logos, have been met with warm critical reception, praised for their stunning ambience and nuance. And while there is a lot of nuance and talent behind his third record under this moniker, Parallax, it does falter just a little.
Cox’s solo albums distance themselves from his work with Deerhunter by being slightly more stripped back; where Deerhunter is a full band, with a full band’s dynamic and frequent bandwide jam sessions, Atlas Sound is more relaxed, more empty, even more ambient. The main thing that really ties the two projects together is Cox’s distinctive watery vocals.
Normally, Atlas Sound recordings manage to use this spacey, experimental style with grace, but Parallax goes just a little bit overboard with it. Although there are a number of offenders, the last two songs, “Quark 1” and “Quark 2,” alone amount to 10 minutes of wasted time. They essentially are just slowly changing, looping sounds that might fit in on an album of entirely ambient music or a soundtrack but seem really jarring in the context of an album that, for the most part, contains structured songs with beginnings, middles and ends.
It’s great that Cox is willing to push musical boundaries, but the result still needs to be compelling enough to merit multiple listens, and these sound experiments do not. Instead, they just sort of drone on until they end unceremoniously.
This ambient exploration happens more than it should, and every time feels like it’s just interrupting the album with an unwanted intermission. It’s really off-putting and weighs down what is otherwise a really solid record.
The rest of the record does have some really good parts, however. Highlights include “Te Amo,” whose rolling spectral sounds and clunky piano steps perfectly complement Cox’s crooning, and the bubbly and fun “Mona Lisa.”
Fans of earlier Atlas Sound recordings will find a lot to like on this album, even if most of it sounds pretty familiar. And that just might be this album’s biggest problem. With the exception of the looping ambience (which, to be fair, Cox has experimented with before, just not to this extreme an extent) there isn’t really anything new that Parallax has to offer. If you’ve heard another Atlas Sound record (or imaged what Deerhunter would sound like with less guitar), you’ve basically heard everything that Parallax has to offer.
In the end, though, fans of Atlas Sound, Deerhunter, or psychedelic and ambient music will find a lot to love in Parallax, and while the record does drag, especially near the end, its good moments still easily outweigh the bad.
Atlas Sound – Parallax tracklist:
- “The Shakes”
- “Amplifiers”
- “Te Amo”
- “Parallax”
- “Modern Aquatic Nightsongs”
- “Mona Lisa”
- “Praying Man”
- “Doldrums”
- “Angel Is Broken”
- “Terra Incognita”
- “Flagstaff”
- “Lightworks”
- “Quark 1”
- “Quark 2”
