D

This is an album which bears repeated listening, and which deserves to become more than just a summer soundtrack; but rather one of those releases that can be revisited again and again, with each listen revealing new details and delights.

Since the band cooked up an excellent 12 songs in only a few weeks last year (which they made available as a free download titled the Last Day of Summer), it should come as no surprise that the laboriously constructed follow-up is a masterpiece.

D is one for the record books, if not because it's an overflowing melting pot of talent and ideas, then because of how many times you'll find yourself hitting the play button again.

Intricate guitar lines twine tightly and Josh Block's hyperactive drumming keeps the whole rickety enterprise a hair's breadth shy of total collapse. [Jul 2011, p.121]

They're all talented musicians, so it's actually a pleasure to hear them go off on the occasional jazz fusion tangent, which they approach with the raw enthusiasm of a garage-punk band (except that they sound closer to King Crimson).

Those who've found White Denim's previous albums a little too cluttered and clattery for comfort should find that D is a good deal more accessible, yet it also ends up being their most thrillingly off-kilter record to date. [July 2011, p. 112]

An audacious, adventurous, unclassifiable fourth album from the newly expanded Austin natives: this is a seriously self-assured sonic experience.

while D contains strange time signatures, proggy flute solos and syncopation aplenty, it soon reveals itself to be a work for the heart as well as the mind.

D is a technical tour de force. [Jul 2011, p.89]

It doesn't matter whether White Denim are playing glowing, Lee Hazlewood-style country or chugging, meaty metal: the sound is always unmistakably their own.

There are countless touchstones, but the sublime attack often recalls late-Sixties Grateful Dead, when their songs still had garage-rock drive but were exploding every which way.

White Denim remain unusually talented musicians for whom eclecticism is the rule, and expectation the harbinger of some totally bad vibes.

"And it's nothing like what you'd thought it'd be," Petralli sings in the record's early goings. There's a summarization of D's sometimes enthralling, sometimes maddening capriciousness in there, but it's also a declaration of the off-road paths the band will cut in the future.

White Denim's attention to detail is superb, but everything just fits together. It must be said though, that they aren't breaking any new ground at all, but sometimes that doesn't matter if the music is good enough to hold its own.

White Denim (now a four-piece) have never been less than terrific, but as they move further from the garage and embrace their real love – early '70s Americana – they defy all probability.

While White Denim have a tendency to enthusiastically overcook things, ultimately it's their sheer audacity--allied to some strong tunes--that makes D hard to resist.

At this point in the game, all those influences and touchstones have jelled into a sound that's both easily identifiable and quite unique, and though it's still occasionally jarring in its schizophrenia, it's one that manages to be consistent on its own terms.

White Denim's inherent restlessness means that all the band's releases feel transitional to a degree, but D's measured restraint points toward the best possible direction for them.

The band's fourth full-length, D, largely forgoes the breezy indie pop of last year's digital-only release, Last Day of Summer, attempting instead to usher jazz-fusion into the indie era. That's an improbable feat, but the rhythm section of bassist Steve Terebecki and drummer Josh Block lock in tighter than DNA strands, while guitarist James Petralli's progression can be measured in the group's instrumental catalog.

For all the creativity, there's a certain fire that's missing. The jagged energy that set White Denim apart from so many others has been rounded out, replaced with a relaxed streak and lots of noodling that wears down by D's end.

The melange of old sonic idioms doesn't say anything remarkable about their sources or feel particularly original. White Denim sound ready to craft a groundbreaking record--D just isn't it.

Overall, D is a measured if occasionally overcooked beast that proves difficult to digest as a whole.

The confidence of this Texan trio's last effort (2009's Fits) is lacking on their first major-label release.