NUTSHELLED: "Halcyon Digest"

Having graduated, by degrees, from conjuring seismic moods to writing proper songs, Halcyon Digest finds Deerhunter strip-mining new aural territory and tap-dancing along the fault line separating structure from abstraction. Opener “Earthquake” lowers a looping trio of sounds - a snare trill, a struck match, a tape-nose swipe - into a deep sonic chasm where legions of web-like guitars, seltzer-water sound effects, and dissolving vocals dominate. The persnickety synthesizer scaffolding erected early on in “He Would Have Laughed” loosens into a kaleidoscopic infinity, while there‘s just enough of a suggestion of melody in “Sailing” for the wispy, feather-light ode to not-so-lonely loneliness to register in memory. “Coronado” injects jaunty jangle-pop with saxophone honks - a surprisingly satisfying first for this Atlanta foursome. In this context, Digest’s more conventional fare - Beatles-esque mash-note-to-younger-self “Don’t Cry,” spectral, perpetually reverberating “Basement Scene” - feels, curiously, out of place. B