Courtesy Kranky Records

At this stage of the musical game, it’s hard to find a record drenched in waves of sound and hiss which also gives way to fresh, clean moments.

Bradford Cox, of Deerhunter fame, achieves this on his first full-length record under his Atlas Sound moniker. Through its entirety, the album jumps from influence to influence, never quite sticking to one idea. However, the unifying force behind “Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Not Feel” lies in the likeness in feel from one song to another, each and every one eerily distant and hypnotically thick.

Most of the album’s tracks exist within a murky dreamworld, slaves to Cox’s unconscious wisps of layered vocals and downbeat rhythms. This idea is predominant in songs like “On Guard” and “Winter Vacation,” which features an echoed vocal over a sort of house backbone underscoring ambient washes of sound.

These increasingly electronic, robotic moments bring to mind the cold, ambient sounds found on early Aphex Twin recordings. While essentially monotonous, “Winter Vacation” succeeds, embodying a frigid mood often associated with the season.

Another like track, “Scraping Past,” is more upbeat, employing an actual bass line to fill out the song. Sonic Youth-like noise spills from the guitar, which pulses in and out of the mix, yet is harnessed by the nearly danceable backbeat.

Other archetypes rest within the record as well, including the strictly ambient and the more pop-leaning. These genres normally do not meld together, but Cox has managed to create simultaneously beautiful and disastrous moods.

Tracks such as “Small Horror” and “Ready Set Glow” are examples of his taking the ambient path. “Small Horror” churns and chimes along after its opening blare of horns, the unintelligible vocals recalling the less structured work of My Bloody Valentine. “Ready Set Glow” adds to the sonic confusion, with opening phrases jumping from speaker to speaker and no vocal to be found. This effect quite correctly mimics the whirring blade of a helicopter, dissolving and resolving over and over again.

The pop elements do not rise to the surface, yet are buried beneath the hiss and haze. The most golden of these moments appears quickly, right at the beginning of the second track, “Recent Bedroom.” This pop hook could have been borrowed from a melodic Pavement song, a perfect guitar tone used in the right place, even though the sunny element exists within the cold, hard winter defined by the rest of the album.

Other more pop moments are not as successful, however, leaning toward the monotonous and generic. These songs, namely “River Card,” “Bite Marks” and “Ativan,” tend to go nowhere. These tracks fail in that they plod along in limbo, neither solid enough to remember nor enveloping enough to feel.

The general alienated feel works in a few ways. The record is not an underground indie-pop showcase, nor does it have an ambient mood throughout. It’s a strange departure from the norm, a mixing of sounds, ideas and genres to create something fresh and new.

This is not an artistic statement from some frozen tundra miles away from civilization, but from Atlanta, Georgia. Perhaps this is where the bright elements factor in, injecting the record with sunshine from the nation’s Southeast corner.

This quickly balances out with Cox’s own alienation, his oft-mentioned possession of the physical deformations associated with the genetic disorder Marfan Syndrome. All is not destruction, however, and this sentiment shines through his music. Atlas Sound has made a balanced record full of interesting choices and layers upon sonic layers to peel through and discover.

Ian Nelson can be reached at [email protected].