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Atlas Sound. Parallax

Tracklist:

1 The Shakes – 2:57
2 Amplifiers – 2:49
3 Te Amo – 4:14
4 Parallax – 2:46
5 Modern Aquatic Nightsongs– 4:09
6 Mona Lisa – 3:06
7 Praying Man – 2:48
8 [bad word] – 4:35
9 My Angel Is Broken – 4:58
10 Terra Incognita – 6:25
11 Flagstaff – 5:54
12 Lightworks – 3:56
13 Quark 1 – 7:47
14 Quark 2 – 2:42
 [bad word] 
Solo acoustic guitar. Two-thirds of the way into the astral-folk voyage "Terra Incognita," on Bradford Cox's third record as Atlas Sound, the only sound you hear is solo acoustic guitar. There was a time when such a barely adorned moment would've been unthinkable from the notorious, fake-blood-spewing, cross-dressing Deerhunter frontman. It would've been as unlikely as Parallax's cover image -- Cox as a slicked-back greaser clutching a vintage microphone.

Not anymore. On Deerhunter's critically acclaimed 2010 effort, Halcyon Digest, the Atlanta band distilled their downcast noise-rock ecstasy into still-dreamier reveries; now it's time for Cox's dreamier half to get dreamier still. Iridescent electro-acoustic love songs for no one, angelic garage-pop regrets, and enough religious imagery to suggest that Cox and Girls' Christopher Owens know the Holy Trinity even more intimately than the preachier Justin Bieber -- Parallax easily [bad word] it all, plus harmonica, too.

But a sci-fi tint shifts the perspective from Atlas Sound's usual layered introspection: Inner space now has [bad word] outer space. On "Mona Lisa," a gentle piano-pop tune reminiscent of John Lennon's early solo work, the transition from shoegazing to stargazing is almost literal, as Cox imagines "entire galaxies" [bad word] on his daydreams. The final frontier? "I'd describe it," our intrepid explorer coos into the void on "Flagstaff," his floaty voice at its most richly nuanced. "But your jaw would drop."