College Times

Issue date: 11/5/09 Section: Music

Media Credit: Locket Pundt

Atlas Sound
Logos
(Kranky)
Grade: B

If you want to know what indie rock is up to in 2009 - or if someone asks you - play "Walkabout," the first single and one of the standout tracks from Logos, Atlas Sound's sophomore album. Featuring Noah Lennox, of Animal Collective and Panda Bear fame, "Walkabout" is a perfect pop song twisted and turned weird, illustrating songwriter Bradford Cox's dueling gifts for sunny melodies and disorienting breakdowns. (Atlas Sound is Cox's solo project; he also heads the indie-psychedelic band Deerhunter.)

But "Walkabout" is only a blip on Logos, where the lights never shine too bright but flicker a lot. Even when things approach warp speed, as on the swirling, 8-1/2-minute "Quick Canal," we're never too far from slowing back down.

Cox has become a master at this sort of non-style; songs like "My Halo" and "Kid Klimax" breathe in much more than they exhale, and sound as if all the energy went into making them sit still. They're heavy because of what they won't do, and that's as heavy as it gets.

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