Atlas sound - Parallax

Ryan Adams recently commented that he felt his career had been derailed by the sheer number of records he shoved out.  People couldn't keep up and so lost interest. Some may argue that many of them were terrible and that Adams has often behaved like an egotistical clown but he has a point. I mean, despite being a huge Guided by Voices fan, I couldn't tell you what the last seven Robert Pollard albums sounded like. Its getting increasingly obvious that Bradford Cox is facing the same problem. Its great that he's so prolific, I love Deerhunter to bits but how much of his recent work has been great rather than so so? Album number three from his solo project (I didn't even hear number two) finds him dolled up like Chris Isaak on the cover and peddling a sound that sounds akin to the lesser tracks on his main bands hit and miss 'Halycon Digest'. Track three 'De Amo' sounds exactly like that albums underwhelming closer 'He Would Have Laughed'. Better is the title track (single reviewed elsewhere by our Business Lady) - a lazy, hazy drift of a song with a beautiful laconic chorus and shards of electronic debris that threaten to de-rail it but never quite do.  Elsewhere 'Mona Lisa' is an acoustic gem of a pop song revealing once again that Cox has quite the pop nous when he chooses to use it.  It's hard sometimes to see where Deerhunter ends and where Atlas Sound begins and for every amiable drifting faff there's a tune like 'Angel is Broken' that bursts in like a potential classic without really snagging the ear. You'd kind of like to see Cox stretch himself into different areas with his solo stuff as many of these tracks come off as sounding like 'Halycon Digest' outtakes. Still, that in itself is no bad thing and you can't really criticise someone for being too creative.