Looking past the death of a band mate, the cross-dressing performances and himself, Bradford Cox, who goes under moniker Atlas Sound, sheds light on love in his lo-fi pop album Parallax.
According to the Atlanta-native, “The Shakes” is inspired either by Howard Hughes, Elvis Presley or Kurt Cobain. The chord progression compliments lyrics on finding money and fame without losing oneself.
“Te Amo” sounds as if those very words replaced “take my hand” in Cox’s band Deerhunter’s “Helicopter.” It dives straight into the abyss and bubbles like champagne.
“Mona Lisa” features MGMT’s Andrew Vanwyngarden on keys and on higher octave vocals, which adds contrasting vocals circa the Cox and Lockett Pundt combo on “Agoraphobia.”
“Terra Incognita” is a six-and-a-half minute track that brings out the beauty in the music beast, similar to Jefferson Airplane’s “Coming Back To Me” in its timelessness. The song switches halfway in and embodies Cox’s musical forte.
Similar to his Marfan syndrome, Cox’s songs are skeletal, but fortified with layers upon layers of sounds from electric guitar to percussion to his stream-of-consciousness. Just as the album title suggests that more distanced objects appear to move slower than objects in the viewpoint, Parallax is a progressive blur of the same reverb-saturated sound with more melodies compared to Logos.