Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

Cold and sweet all at once while perched atop a reef of moody Krautrock, Let the Blind Lead has a progression that melts more than it floats.

As with each of Cox's projects, Let the Blind works best as a swirling, disorienting whole, organizing traditionally abstract styles like graphic-design elements within his unifying vision until they communicate like good pop.

While the record pleases on most all levels, the flavor of sound at times feels somewhat generic and a bit too lethargic, which keeps the disc from being great.

Cox blends rock instruments with organs, harps and his haunting, languid voice, and the result is a gentle, richly textured wall of sound.

His gentle mantric vocals and concise, evocative lyrics drift through layers of treated instrumentation and ambient electronica. [Apr 2008, p.112]

Bradford Cox has created a work that musically and lyrically will attach itself to your consciousness, reflecting exterior experience and encouraging inner association with the former.

Cox followed his muse and ran with it, and what resulted is a collection of music that's as intriguing as its creator.

There are times on Let the Blind…, when the music around Cox veers subtly in the right direction, where you can hear the grub’s surprise as he wakes up with Great Admiral wings, ugly white noise turning psychedelic.

He easily sidesteps the drama that dogged he and his band throughout 2007 (and ultimately led to their declaration of hiatus towards the end of the year), turning Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel into a beautifully melancholic slice of shimmering, ambient pop.

While Cox’s narratives make little sense (much of the time, he’s not even singing so much as wailing wordlessly), the music is surprisingly accessible.

Let the Blind Lead‘s lovesickness and confessions, however, are as tenderly delivered as its hazy atmospherics are, and in their bare authenticity, are far more compelling in repeat indulgences than Deerhunter’s explorations.

Each song has a distinctive quality that stands on its own. However, when you back away from the album as a whole, you begin to see that all these individual elements unify to make a greater holistic product.

Cox projects an otherwordly allure in his atmospheres and melodies that recall My Blood Valentine's recasting of rock as sound that prioritizes erotic texture and swoon-worthy levitation. [Mar 2008, p.140]

It's an uneven and at times painfully intimate record, but one that confirms the talent of a songwriter obsessed with illuminating his interior truth.

As is often the case with that genre [Too Pure acts like Seefeel], certain songs feel aimless and in dire need of an editor. But when they coalesce (as on the tender lament "Recent Bedroom" or the gentle Jesus And Mary Chain pop of "Ativan") it creates a beautiful, truly immersive world tailor-made for hiding and healing.

In flashing back, Cox smears just the right amount of Vaseline on the lens. [Mar 2008, p.96]

The album's not faultless: as with Deerhunter, Cox has the tendency to try too hard to be profound, wanting so badly to say something important that he sounds trite and forced, and untrustworthy, but when he's able to forget about conveying some kind of meaning and instead focuses on the actual music, his message--one of pain and love and feeling lost, of trying desperately to understand--is undeniable.