Atlas Sound: "Te Amo"

So it turns out Bradford Cox is actually a pretty great singer. Who would’ve thought? He might not have the force and pathos of, say, Hamilton Leithauser—still indie rock’s best overall vocalist, for my money—but as Cox has gradually cleared away the static and industrial sludge that used to define Deerhunter’s sound, he has revealed to the world a soulful, expressive, and often heartbreaking voice. It was that voice that made “Helicopter,” the centerpiece of last year’s Halcyon Digest, such an achingly gorgeous song, and it is that voice that sells “Te Amo,” the second single from Atlas Sound’s upcoming Parallax.

And frankly, it’s about damn time Cox put himself front and center. Up to this point, Atlas Sound has felt too much like a vanity project without the vanity, as Cox has been more interested in exploring the contours of a specific acoustic atmosphere than foregrounding his formidable songcraft. With “Te Amo,” he seems to have found a way to reconcile the two approaches. The song is built around a cyclical electric piano figure that grows more and more hypnotic as the song progresses, Cox’s ever-shifting layers of digital percussion and subtle background riffs adding rich harmonic textures to the central melody. As with many Atlas Sound works, it is a track that rewards close listening, as Cox has become something of a master at seamlessly integrating disparate textures and tones into an affecting whole.

Unlike most of Atlas Sound’s work, however, this one jumps to a whole new level once Cox joins in. He doesn’t exactly have a lot to say in “Te Amo”—it’s a love song, I guess, or so the title would seem to indicate—but he invests each word with such conviction that essentially meaningless lines like “When you’re down, you’re always down” seem to take on about five different meanings as Cox repeats them over the course of the song. Cox is eminently capable of writing sharp, emotionally direct lyrics—just revisit Halcyon Digest closer “He Would Have Laughed” if you need proof—but I have always gotten the sense that Atlas Sound, true to its name, is less about “saying something” and more about experimenting with sound as such, and this song serves as further evidence for this idea. The only difference being that Cox’s voice, stronger and more expressive than one could have ever guessed it would be a few years back, is now at the forefront of his dense sonic tapestries, and provides a firm center for his meandering tonal explorations. And it sounds fantastic.