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Fun Fun Fun review: Deerhunter
But beginning with “Wash Off” from 2007’s “Fluorescent Gray” EP, the members of Deerhunter proved themselves adept at taking their album cuts and expanding them to fill spaces as big as the Fun Fest grounds. The punk drive of the song, paired with fuzzed out bass lines, cut through swirls of feedback and delayed guitar. Near the end of the song, Cox looped his vocal croons, creating a waterfall choir of heavenly vocal filler. This set opener clocked in at nearly 10 minutes, but the audience didn’t seem to mind. Aside from the usual head-nodders, some attendees were dancing furiously.
The rest of the set consisted mostly of cuts from this year’s “Halcyon Digest.” With sludgy distortion and slurring vocals, Deerhunter took songs with slightly sunny melodies and obscured them with a haze of misty rain. The resulting wall of staticky sound surrounded the audience, and when Cox broke through the noise to solo, attendees cheered.
The highlight, however, was the set closer, “Helicopter.” The downtempo song trudged through heavy bursts of bass and guitar. Near the end, everything cut out but the stumbling beat and Cox’s haunting lyricism. It was a hypnotic moment, and one that Cox and the rest of the band can surely take confidence in.
Photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
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