Dan Deacon – Glass Riffer

★★★

I don’t know if I’ve ever actually used this phrase before, but Glass Riffer is a hot mess.

It’s so cluttered.  Every single bit of sonic real estate is developed.  The arrangements are massive.  Every moment seems intricately orchestrated for maximum payoff.  Tracks like “Sheathed Wings” and “Learning To Relax” seem to blast out of the speakers like the blossoming of a nuclear fireball.  This is an incessant, throbbing album that comes off like the epic start of every party ever.

And this is Dan Deacon supposedly stripping down and simplifying things.

While this sort of exuberant energy has its perks, 43 minutes of it can get tiring.  Not helping matters is the second-last track, “Take It To The Max”, which rides an insistently annoying figure for far too long and ruins the end of the album.  When he reins in these obnoxious tendencies the results are pure gold, like on the first single “Feel The Lightning”; Deacon, however, doesn’t always seem to be able to rein it in.  Still, despite its “stripped down” nature, it’s every bit as full and satisfying as America or Spiderman of the Rings.