Two years after Monomania, Bradford Cox and his band of merry men sign off their seventh album, which offers some radical, altogether new perspectives for Deerhunter. The group, hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, originally drew us towards their sonic chloroform through an amazing melodic mastery. Their shoegaze guitars fascinated, hailing, above all, from the great Irish group My Bloody Valentine. This dreamlike, hypnotic brand of rock is still, more or less, on the Fading Frontier programme. But Cox diverges by giving in to a more purified pop sensibility this time around. Deerhunter have not sold their soul to the devil; in fact, the fundamentals of the group are so strong, that these melodic addendums could never alter the core DNA of the music. In this respect, the insane and very groovy single ‘Snakeskin’ shows off this perfect balance. In short, we might ask, has the serious car accident (and narrow escape from death) of the Deerhunter frontman mellowed this charismatic, formerly vitriolic leader? Impossible to say… Anyway, Fading Frontier confirms that Deerhunter remain one of the most interesting American indie-rock groups of the past decade.