Atlas Sound, the solo project of prolific Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox, has always seemed like an outlet for Cox’s bedroom experimentation, a loosening of the focused dream-pop leash of his other project. Take 2009’s full-length Logos: nebulous melodies and song structures floated in and out of focus in an ambient, synthesized landscape, which was occasionally cleared for the blissful pop of tracks like ‘Shelia.’

Parallex sees a reversal of this approach, with primarily acoustic instrumentation providing a more accessible veneer under which subtle electronic touches work to hint at underlying friction. ‘Amplifiers’, for example, sees repeated, light acoustic guitar chords and Cox’s occasionally tense, strained vocal delivery supplemented by a constant drone which sounds both subtle and vast. The fragility of the song’s structure is eventually consumed as it fades into the backing hum.

Cox consistently refuses to succumb to the lures of pure pop; the songs on Parallex tread mysterious ground as they intermingle discordant sounds to produce songs that are at once accessible and inviting yet disorienting. The double-tracked high-hats on anxious ‘The Shakes’ are always slightly out of sync, off-setting the driving rock rhythm, whilst creating the feverish atmosphere suited to a tale of a man who has lost himself to fame.

Many tracks on the album’s second half are reminiscent of Deerhunter’s forays into ambient territory, but Cox’s approach here displays an increased focus and dexterity. The reverberating keyboard notes and slowly glitching synthesisers of ‘Doldrums’ make for an immersive dream landscape, which becomes a faint echo in time for Cox’s touchingly direct appeal to “remember your friend.”

Parallax, for all of its surface increase in accessibility, actually proves more mysterious than the skeletal song structures of Atlas Sound’s previous work. This is because of the predominance of pop sensibilities. In confining his ambient tendencies to the periphery of many of these songs, Cox has actually worked to make them more unsettling; the melodies are no longer cloaked, but they are constantly threatened by the atmosphere they are built from.