Deerhunter: Halcyon Digest

Label: 4AD

This album was going to be talked about no matter what — but Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest is such a complete and full work of pop artistry that it'll surely go down as one of the indie records of the year. For their fourth and possibly best full-length, Bradford Cox & Co. have for the most part pulled way back, recording themselves and letting nu-slacker tunes like "Sailing," with its spare, musing-on-a-sunny-afternoon vibe, and the opening "Earthquake" glisten in the open air. Throughout the album the guitars take on playfully fuzzy textures, even within nimble, bouncing tunes like "Revival" and "Coronado." Yet while a sense of made-by-hand craft is prominent, there are plenty of surprises: After four of-a-piece songs start the album, "Memory Boy" explodes with a sort of shinier fidelity and a melodic sensibility that takes in so much great pop of the past five decades. Don't dare call Halcyon Digest "lo-fi" though; it's clear that a lot of time and attention went into making it sound unfussy, and Deerhunter pull it off with maximum confidence and humility. By the time you get to "He Would Have Laughed," the sparklingly abstruse album-ending tribute to the late Jay Reatard, you'll be fully charmed. (M.L. Thrope)