The last song on Monomania, “Punk (La Vie Anterieure)”, details the restless identity of frontman and idiot savant of Deerhunter, Bradford Cox. His decision to rest with ‘punk’ amongst all of his quandaries for the title of this track is very suiting, considering Cox’s aversion to be as punk as he can possibly perceive himself to be. Remember last year when, during an Atlas Sound performance, Cox covered “My Sharona” for an entire fucking hour? Cox is about as punk as it gets, an opinion I’m sure he would be thrilled to hear of. Deerhunter as a band isn’t quite as easy to define as Cox the personality, or at least they haven’t been up until this point. Mastery of genre has defined this band’s past, coming to a head with 2010’s Halcyon Digest, a record which managed to cover almost the entire spectrum of rock – roots to electronic – within its 11 song range. You could only be certain of one thing when it came to Deerhunter in the past – no matter what genre they were tackling, it was gonna be dark.
That darkness is just about the only aspect of the band’s past that they have carried over onto Monomania. In the three years since Halcyon Digest, both Cox and Lockett Pundt, the band’s rhythm guitarist, have released successful ‘solo’ records that have cemented themselves as formidable forces within the industry outside of Deerhunter. What did the rest of the band do during this long tenure? They got a life, basically. As I mentioned, two of them left to make other music. The years leading up to the release of Halcyon Digest were reportedly chaotic, so this break was well received. The bassist took the opportunity to leave the band for good, and everyone else settled down for a while…except for Cox. Monomania refers to Cox’s obsessed, single minded commitment to creating music. Cox apparently spent an entire year drinking and writing in Eleanor Friedberger’s apartment, coming out with some 300 odd songs as a result of this. These are the songs that he would later bring to the rest of the band to flesh out and appear on this record (apart from the perfect little slice of indie pop heaven that is Pundt’s contribution, “The Missing”). The band’s decision to record these songs straight to 8 track reflects the drunken, shambling way the songs themselves were conceived, in the darkness of Cox’s self-inflicted solitude.
The decision to draw on material all written during a very specific time period and record to 8 track results in Deerhunter’s least sonically variant outing since their debut Turn It Up Faggot; it’s also their noisiest since, though it never sounds like they’re trying to compensate for anything. Instead, it acts almost as a sort of challenge to the band; without the distraction of the genre skipping of previous records, the songs on Monomania are required to stand on the strength of their songwriting alone. Obviously Cox has had a lot of practice at this by this point, and Monomania stands as a testament of just how great of a songwriter Cox has become. Despite maintaining sonic and stylistic similarities throughout the record, every song stands out as a memorable piece of the Deerhunter canon. For such a lo-fi, straightforward record, the intent behind it seems ambitious enough: Deerhunter is one of the best fucking American rock bands on the planet right now and they are NOT afraid to show it.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few weeks trying to decide whether or not Monomania is Deerhunter’s best record. It seems like the least obvious choice, compared to the epic despair of Microcastle or the rampant creativity of Halcyon Digest. Yet something about this record sets it apart from the rest of their discography, where there was a sense of interconnectedness between the albums. Monomania sounds like Deerhunter’s attempt to step outside of their own legacy and tread amongst the all time greats. Thinking in terms of Deerhunter’s discography feels like too small of a scale to be considering anymore. With Monomania, in typical snotty fashion, Cox and Deerhunter insist that they are rock and roll royalty, and they put up such a racket in the process that its impossible to ignore them.
Ridiculous Made Up Genre of the Day: Leather Punk
Rating: 4/5