The narcotic drones and fragmented art punk Deerhunter explored on Cryptograms made the album a love-it-or-hate-it proposition for many indie rock fans; where some heard eclectic expansiveness, others heard incoherent experiments. Microcastle, the band's first album with guitarist Whitney Petty, brings together the disparate elements that made Cryptograms fascinating and frustrating, adding a little more pop and quite a bit more studio polish (this album was recorded in a week, as opposed to the two days it took to lay down Cryptograms). Deerhunter still change from gentle to storming at a moment's notice, as on "Microcastle" itself, which drifts along like a slow-motion surf rock ballad, then catches fire about two-thirds of the way through, and the album's middle stretch of songs is just as lulling as Cryptograms' opening suite, but a lot more melodic. These fever-dream moments are punctuated by pop songs that are as crystal clear as they are warped. Microcastle was also released with Weird Era Continued, an album of bonus songs that plays like Microcastle's mirror twin: tracks like "Vox Celeste" and "VHS Dream" put the angular pop first and experimental haze second. Taken as a whole, Microcastle/Weird Era Continued is an even richer, more ambitious, and more exciting listen than either part on its own.

Track Listing
1 Cover Me
2 Agoraphobia
3 Never Stops
4 Little Kids
5 Microcastle
6 Calvary Scars
7 Green Jacket
8 Activa
9 Nothing Ever Happened
10 Saved by Old Times
11 Neither of Us, Uncertainly
12 Twilight at Carbon Lake
13 Backspace Century
14 Operation
15 Ghost Outfit
16 Dot Gain
17 Vox Celeste
18 Cicadas
19 Vox Humana
20 VHS Dream
21 Focus Group
22 Slow Swords
23 Weird Era
24 Moon Witch Cartridge
25 Calvary Scars II/Aux. Out