Perhaps the plurality of the way we consume media has denied Cox the reactiveness that he has lamented and talked about at length around the release of WHEAD?, but in the context of Deerhunter’s catalogue it takes 15 years of oscillating and condenses everything that makes this band great into about 40 minutes. On those terms, it’s absolutely essential.
They’ve made a huge leap with Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?.
While time will decide whether it’s the best Deerhunter album, WHEAD? can lay claim to being the most ‘Deerhunter’ Deerhunter album. It’s utterly, completely, resolutely and defiantly them. It’s futuristic but warm, nostalgic but distant, pretentious but human.
Part eco-lament, part eulogy for emotion, part reflection on the 24-hour news cycle in the age of Trump and the threat of nationalism, on WHEAD? Cox delivers a fairly stark status update for humanity ... but sugars the pill by wrapping the message in some of Deerhunter’s prettiest songs to date
Unpredictability is a rare and rather valuable commodity in a world of media-trained personalities and music dictated by the metrics of streaming services, and it’s something Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? has in abundance.
Deerhunter's eighth studio album wrestles with escapist and confrontational impulses, and continues their exploration of shifting sonic identity.
From the weariness and wonder in its title to the mix of delicacy and anger in its songs, Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? is one of Deerhunter's most haunting and thought-provoking albums.
Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? marks their third album since they regrouped, and setting aside the individual merits of both Monomania and Fading Frontier, it's the first where they provide a clearer understanding of how they function during their second phase as a unified piece.
Though less immediate, Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? still bristles with the spirit that makes Deerhunter’s work mystifying. Along with Fading Frontier, the album presents a new era for Deerhunter, one more contemplative and spacious yet continually beguiling.
In finding the loneliness and rage of others, Cox broadens his lyrical palette while remaining fundamentally opaque and just out of reach.
Certainly their best album since Halcyon Digest. Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? finds Deerhunter painting airbrush-soft landscapes for the subtle and quiet hours.
This is a Deerhunter album, so closer listening reveals much more going on beneath the surface. To be fair, though, Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? isn’t as viscerally challenging as many of the band’s prior efforts.
It would be nice if Deerhunter had a clearer plan of attack on nostalgia culture, but instead WHEAD? boils down to merely a really nice sounding pop rock record.
The pleasures on Disappeared are highly attenuated: almost every good melodic or structural idea is cushioned in some greater manifestation of banality or aggravation.
Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared is hands-down the blandest entry in Deerhunter's discography.
Like ghosts that don’t know they’re dead, the songs on Deerhunter’s Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? wander about in a well-produced limbo almost in mourning for the death they can’t die. But they don’t know it, so — and this is the saddest part about it — they become what they deplore, all loss glossed over.
Tired indie tropes – wilderness metaphors and twee imagery about village greens and country roads – keep resurfacing, like a New Year’s resolution that has quickly slid away to be replaced by the same stale habits.
Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? may not reinvent the wheel, but by refining the themes and upbeat sonic palettes that made their previous outing intriguing, Deerhunter come through with their most compelling record since Halcyon Digest.
Favorite Tracks: What Happens To People? (seriously this song is one of their best), Futurism, No One's Sleeping, Plains, Death in Midsummer, Element
Least Favorite Track: Detournement
My mom was telling me yesterday about how on CBC radio they played some singles from this album as part of their "taste tester" segment and people really didn't like it because it was so sad... Yet here I am, having so much fun! Sure, the lyrics are sad, this IS Bradford Cox we're talking about, but it has such a fresh and fun sound. This is possibly Deerhunter'smost upbeat album (from the ones I've heard) and I am all here for it! Finally, 2019 has begun!
This album feels like a drier, more lost middle-ground between "Fading Frontier" and maybe their more experimental albums. But the issue is, it takes from the worst parts of both. It is similarly simplistic like Frontier, but features less instrumental quirks and catchy songs, and the experimentation really falls flat with very goofy synthwork all over this thing, as well as some awful pitch-shifting on a song like "Détournement". Really just a mess of an album sadly, ... read more
1 | Death in Midsummer 4:22 | 89 |
2 | No One's Sleeping 4:25 | 79 |
3 | Greenpoint Gothic 2:02 | 68 |
4 | Element 2:59 | 77 |
5 | What Happens to People? 4:16 | 92 |
6 | Détournement 3:25 | 48 |
7 | Futurism 2:51 | 88 |
8 | Tarnung 3:07 | 64 |
9 | Plains 2:13 | 87 |
10 | Nocturne 6:24 | 71 |
#13 | / | No Ripcord |
#16 | / | Piccadilly Records |
#18 | / | Magnet |
#21 | / | Gothamist |
#22 | / | Under the Radar |
#25 | / | Les Inrocks |
#26 | / | Far Out Magazine |
#46 | / | MOJO |
#57 | / | The Quietus |
#67 | / | Uncut |