For the Record

Author: Melissa Marshall

Taking the necessary precautions, any field scholar could have experienced Freud's theory of regression in action this past Halloween weekend on campuses across the country - and I'm sure some girl in Ohio is typing away on her MacBook as you read this, crafting a thesis around the gender and psychological implications of costume choice. As interesting as the patriarchal repression inherent in dressing up as Snow White is, in the aftermath of Halloween week I am more engaged in the rumblings of the Pitchfork pundits and the hullabaloo of Hype Machine as three new albums throw musical regression into the blogosphere main stage. Snow Patrol, Pit Er Pat and Deerhunter poke our psyches with the question: Does a return to a simpler stage of development result in childlike clumsiness or fresh-faced accessibility?

Its fifth release in 10 years, Snow Patrol's A Hundred Million Suns (Oct. 28) blinds listeners with the dollar signs of slick production. Eyes Open cemented the band's mainstream marketability, and its successor clings to the same formula. But hi-fi sound is not the trouble with the Scottish quintet's latest release - predictability is. Although a solid first attempt, Songs for Polar Bears was too rough around the edges in typical Gavin Rossdale, nineties-style and only with 2004's Final Straw did the band hit its stride with a combination of echoed distortion and stadium rock ballads. And while Final Straw was admittedly repetitive and Eyes Open hampered by structured hooks, you could at least appreciate the earnest evolution that is achingly absent from A Hundred Million Suns. And while tracks like "A Golden Floor" and "Engines" shimmer as sparks of ingenuity, they are ultimately stifled by measures indistinguishable from Keane, Coldplay or the ten other easy-listening alt-bands signed to U.K. labels. And P.S. Gary Lightbody, one 16-minute non-radio-friendly closing track does not make your album ambitious, but it does provide a nice encapsulation of the entirety of A Hundred Million Suns: undistinguished, boring and unnecessary.

One the other end of the spectrum parades Chicago trio Pit Er Pat. Boasting critical labels from post-rock to art pop, its early work can more accurately sum itself up in three syllables: pretentious. Its first release - the aptly entitled 2005 Shakey - fell apart under unsustainable, fragile melodies and indiscernible rhythm, and while 2006's Pyramids' evocative brass combo added some muscle to its sound, the inexplicable strangeness and abrasiveness of the release still proved unenjoyable and unlistenable. Released on Oct. 21, Pit Er Pat's latest endeavor High Times finds a balance between the avant-garde and the accessible. While Fay Davis-Jeffers still tries too hard to create a boom on the unconventional scale with "Cooper Pennies" and "The Good Morning Song," the deliciously spooky and subtly energetic "Omens" and the perfectly kooky "Cairo Shuffle" reveal High Times as an undeniable upward movement where playfulness trumps pretensions.

I am just going to throw this out there: I did not get and/or like Deerhunter's 2007 Cryptograms. While Wordpress warriors were knocking over their Chai lattes in their haste to hail Bradford Cox as the second coming of Cobain here to save the music world from cookie-cutter artists, I was still gripping to the stone age with my mantra replaying of the Shins' Wincing the Night Away. And as hip as noise rock may be these days, I could not appreciate Cox's brand of messy pop as anything other than noise: too incoherent, too mindless, too metropolitan. So when Deerhunter released Microcastle on Oct. 28 I was reluctant to give it a metaphorical spin - but I have placed my finger on the repeat button of Cox's growing pains as he stuns and envelops on his most complex work yet. Arguably one of the most intricate and expansive releases of 2008, Microcastle swings from the sunshine synth of "Agoraphobia" to the Georgia twang of "Saved by Old Times" to the ether orchestration of "These Hands" with perfect harmony while still retaining the genre-bending beat we have come to expect from Cox. By calming the cacophony and curbing the computerization of Cryptograms, Deerhunter has crafted an album that is a little quieter, a little simpler and little more mature without losing the freshman earnest.