Deerhunter’s New Album: A Depressing Masterpiece

Deerhunter perform at the 20181 Primavera Sound Festival in Spain. Photo by Adela Loconte/REX/Shutterstock (9699561ap)

Deerhunter’s new album Why Hasn’t Everything Disappeared Already? manages to be masterfully depressing while also being the kind of indie pop downbeat track you’d hear playing in Urban Outfitters.

The album title itself promises that this won’t be a cheery record. Despite Deerhunter fully embracing their pop era, they have not left behind their habit of producing bleak and hopeless lyrics. Thus in the album title, Cox poses the question not of why his life, his nation and his world continue to persevere, but why everything hasn’t already just disappeared. Existence is reduced to something tiring and pointless which if you listen behind the chirpy instrumentals, is the tone of the whole album.

In track opener “Death In Midsommer, Cox sings of his friends: “Some worked the hills / Some worked in factories / Worked their lives away / And in time / You will see your own life fade away”. Pretty bleak, right? The ominous presence of death is not something we are accustomed to hearing paired up with a harpsichord but in a way, this is what makes the bleakness palatable.

In “Element”, Cox answers his own question of “What happens to people?” with answers such as “their dreams turn to dust” and “they fade away.” The dreamy synth and playful interlude have us nodding our head delightedly in time for the music. Similarly, in “Futurism” Cox tries to be optimistic by retelling the cliche “life is what you make it” but with a twist. Life is a “cage” which he later compares to “patient hell.” So why are we still smiling and nodding our head along with the music?

In many ways, listening to Why Hasn’t Everything Disappeared Already? is an experience that resembles a dog wagging its tail on the way to be put down. The melodies are sweet and the overall feel of the album is more poppy than the band’s earlier releases. Regardless, at the end of the album we are left with a feeling of paradoxically disparaging satisfaction. They don’t even try to turn things around and leave us with a glimmer of hope in the track finale “Nocturne”. It’s just more doom and gloom and we are hungry for more.

The existential and political pain and torment that cuts through this record is, unexpectedly, a pleasure to listen to. The verdict is therefore that Deerhunter’s release is a depressing masterpiece.

4.5/5