Fading Frontier

In December 2014, Bradford Cox was involved in a car crash which left him "seriously injured, but also provided a perspective-giving jolt". Prior to the release of Fading Frontier, Cox stated that the accident "erased all illusions" and admitted that it was a definite turning point for him. Fading Frontier is Deerhunter's and Cox's first release since the accident.[5] This album saw the departure of Frankie Broyles, who left the band in 2015 to focus on his solo career.[6] The song "Ad Astra" contains a sample from Bascom Lamar Lunsford's "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground".[7][8]

Fading Frontier was announced via a countdown timer on Deerhunter's website, which ended on 16 August 2015.[9]

The first single released was "Snakeskin" on August 17,[10] followed up with "Breaker" on September 15, of which the video was directed by Cox himself.[11]

The cover art for the album is a photograph titled "Zuma" by the artist John Divola.[12]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	7.7/10[13]
Metacritic	81/100[14]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[15]
The A.V. Club	A−[7]
The Guardian	[16]
The Irish Times	[17]
Mojo	[18]
NME	5/5[19]
Pitchfork	8.4/10[3]
Q	[20]
Rolling Stone	[21]
Spin	9/10[22]

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 81, based on 27 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[14]

Consequence of Sound critic Sheldon Pearce wrote that the album is "one more gem from a well-traveled band that's still finding new territory to explore."[1] NME critic Barry Nicholson praised the record and gave it a perfect score, describing it as "a remarkable album, one that only grows more awesome with each listen."[19] Ian Cohen of Pitchfork awarded the album with a "Best New Music" tag and wrote: "If there isn't a Deerhunter sound, there's a Deerhunter perspective that runs through their work, best summed up in 'All the Same'—'take your handicaps/ Channel them and feed them back/ Until they become your strengths.' The weird era continues."[3] In The Guardian, Alex Petridis noted the album's more mainstream sound: "there are so many straightforwardly commercial-sounding songs here," he observed, "that Fading Frontier could conceivably be an album that turns Deerhunter from cult concern into mainstream success."[16] Citing a lack of angst and urgency in comparison to previous efforts, Exclaim!'s Anna Alger wrote that "On Fading Frontier, Deerhunter focus on their ability as a band to hypnotize and confound, which make the explosive moments here stand out that much more."[23]

In a less favorable review, Clash critic Sam Walker-Smart wrote that the record "is by no means a poor album, and truth be told really doesn't possess a bad number on it." Nevertheless, he added: "When the oddities on this album ride so high they should have let complete weirdness take over." [24]

• The last thirty seconds of Ad Astra is Bradford Cox performing the traditional folk song I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground.

Credits for the album were adapted from a press release by 4AD.[4]

• "Deerhunter" on 4AD Records