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| Avclub |
 As breakthrough records go, Dan Deacon’s Spiderman Of The Rings was hard to ignore, but limited. Who can’t futz around on a single-key thumb piano, loop Woody Woodpecker’s cackle, and pile some synth on top? Instead of “Who could?”, the primary question posed by those songs was “Who would?”, and the oversimplified answer was “That goofball on the dance floor sweating all over his gadgets.” With Bromst, Deacon not only shucks the “wacky” thing, he replaces it (and those gadgets) with virtuosity of composition and an array of instruments. This album represents his transformation from Baltimore club freak to overstimulated kin of Brian Eno and Cornelius. These are thick songs built around left-field ideas, positively fat with melodic content—physically shake the record, and sheets of notes would probably spray out like a colorful rain of tonal Skittles. Much of this is due to the use of a digitally rigged player piano capable of generating acoustic notes faster than any pair of human hands, but Deacon doesn’t lean on this. Rather, he writes extra-dense for the odd instrument, then spends as much (or more) effort shaping the atmosphere it inhabits. With most songs breaking six minutes, it’s challenging to digest individual pieces—“Red F” has those skittering percussive rolls, “Snookered” recalls Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy, “Surprise Stefani” feels like Steve Reich—but it’s surprisingly easy to “get” Bromst as an album. Deacon has always said that he writes within his physical means (then: homemade equipment, sweltering clubs; now: actual studios, actual venues). A word of advice for anyone who crosses Dan’s path: Give this man anything he asks for....full text |
| Musicomh |
| Dan Deacon may not be a name you're yet familiar with, so let's start by giving some context. To Deaconstruct (ahem) him if you will. It's probably best to start with his live shows, a forum where most bands' reputations live or die. For Deacon there's no such thing as a stage, there's no barrier between artist and audience. Instead, his notoriously riotous gigs usually descend into mass dance-offs with Deacon orchestrating the madness from behind his set-up in the middle of the dancefloor. But don't let such ostentation create an image of pretentious folly, for Deacon dance music is a serious, almost scientific experiment, and having graduated with a degree in electro-acoustic and computer music composition, it's his inert geekiness that shines through. Deacon is also a brilliantly skewed pop star. Portly, prematurely balding and bespectacled, his image is based solely around the lack of image. Born in New York, his lack of cool makes him ultimately cooler then any band that has spewed out of Brooklyn in recent years, and with 2007's Spiderman Of The Rings album he also had the music to support the anti-hype....full text |
| Sputnikmusic |
| It is a switch and he flips it. This “darker” album, this “more organic” sound, this vastly richer and more emotionally driven Deacon, it is just there, slipped unobtrusively into rock-solid foundation. Without having sacrificed anything that always made him Dan Deacon in the first place, that man-child with an affinity for ear-splitting, meat-cleaver synthetic hooks and Crayola art zaniness, Bromst becomes a rich tapestry for the depth and humanity always present in Deacon’s work but never showcased. Spiderman of the Rings brought to light emotions, a euphoric feeling when shoved into a throbbing room of bodies (at the center of which always stands Deacon, goofy ringleader extraordinaire), but it never led them; here, Deacon simply uncovers the heart buried in what still manages to be one of the most unabashedly good times set to record since Deacon’s breakthrough gem. As unexpected as its depth and humanity is, what surprises most is how much fun Deacon is having with this “serious” stuff. As “Build Voice” builds, beginning in complete silence and slowly shuffling from the void, it already sounds full-bodied and confident, and a piano flutters, given so much character that it comes to life in true storybook Disney fashion, as if to be alive; on “Red F,” it’s simply singing through auto-tune. What other artist could make an inanimate object speak in riddles and still pound away with such spirited ferocity? What other artist could take a child’s tinkering mobile and make it ready for club rotation, as he articulates on the album’s “Wham City”-like centerpiece, “Snookered”?...full text |
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