Gliss Riffer, Nate

I don't know that I'd call Gliss Riffer Dan Deacon's best album (that's probably America) and you can make the argument that it doesn't contain his best song (which might either be "Snookered" or "Wham City," depending on which day you happen to catch me on, how the weather is outside, what my blood sugar is doing, and a handful of other factors that need not be enumerated here), but there's a strong case to be made that it's his most easily digestible album, his least challenging, and his most satisfying front-to-back experience. Whereas other (better?) DD records are chock-full of dayglow irritants or orchestral aspirations, this plays as a much more calm, much more straightforward, much less experimental experimental pop record.

Part of me wants to believe this is just what happens when people get older and when artists evolve, that people, like streams, mellow the further they get from the source, the more comfortable in their miles they become. Part of me suspects that when you have the sort of existential revelations that Deacon outlines on "When I Was Done Dying" (which, for those keeping score at home, is also in the running for Deacon's best song all time), things like "edge" and "experiment" become less urgent. Gliss Riffer excels for its lack of hurry.

And now, some loosie thoughts I had listening to this record:

• I have not done the kind of drugs with the frequency required to confirm this, but in speaking with a few friends who have eaten their share of both acid and MDMA, they feel confident that what Deacon is discussing on "When I Was Done Dying" is coming from a place reached only by LSD. I take the experts at their word.
• Funny thing about Deacon is his relationship to his own voice. Sometimes he seems to want nothing more than to obscure what he's saying ("Feel the Lightning" comes to mind), and sometimes he wants you to sit up and focus ("When I Was Done Dying").
• For kicks, here's my personal ranking of Dan Deacon albums, Best to Least: America -> Bromst -> Gliss Riffer -> Spiderman of the Rings -> Mystic Familiar. I should say that I would happily listen to any of these records without batting an eye.
• Fucking wild to look back at a life lived and realize that Dan Deacon is, potentially, one of the most consistent artists that I have perpetually liked since first discovering him. He's one of my constants.
• I'm not going to proclaim myself some kind of Baltimore music scene scholar, but they got some fucking weird bands down there. Every time I take a spin on the "Baltimore" tag on Bandcamp, I find a lot of stuff that... well, frankly, it sucks, but it sucks in unique and exciting ways.