White Denim: D – review

4 out of 5 4
  • The Guardian,
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  1. Buy the CD
  2. Download as MP3
  3. White Denim
  4. D
  5. Downtown / Cooperative
  6. 2011

D is White Denim's fourth album in as many years, and as you might expect from such a statistic, it doesn't differ much from its predecessors. The band's sound hasn't changed radically; they've acquired a second guitarist, but otherwise don't seem to have progressed. Damning criticism? Not at all: White Denim are so fiercely experimental, playful and talented that they cram more radical change into single songs than many bands manage in entire lifespans. What makes D typical is the fluency with which it travels in umpteen musical directions simultaneously: River to Consider throws Latin-American carnival shapes, weaves in prog flute, breaks down into washes of psychedelia, and glues the lot together with luminous guitar riffs. It's Him! is a straightforward indie-rocker sent spinning by its elastic bassline and jazz-flecked drumming. More remarkable still is that 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.

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