Listening to Deerhunter live can be an assault on the senses, with ear drum-shattering noise that would make Thurston Moore cringe. On albums, they produce lulling sonatas of Southern gentility. The two disparate sensations would seem to be polar opposites, but it is all part of the same effect. That's just what post-modern love songs sound like.

And post-modern love songs are what Deerhunter creates. In a different world, each one would be a Billboard Hit alongside the girl-group sounds of the '60s. The single "Helicopter" is a perpetual release of slowly dying emotion, where each chord unleashes wave after wave of purifying calm set to a lullaby about social acceptance. Underneath there's a tinge of unease as to what it all means. It's that sort of complex sentiment that's rarely found in the public sphere, where simplicity is often prized above all else. There's no reason that songs like this couldn't be pop hits now, but the likelihood of that happening is somewhere close to nil.

On iTunes: Deerhunter / "Helicopter"