Throughout their decade-long career, it’s become obvious that Deerhunter are always going to be unpredictable. From the self-dubbed ‘ambient punk’ of 2007’s Cryptograms to the more regular but no less magnificent dreamy indie pop of 2010’s Halcyon Digest, Deerhunter have never been a band to play it safe creatively. Their newest effort, Fading Frontier, provides the perfect combination of previous styles and new experimentation.

With certain songs, there is a sense of a return to the familiar. On opener ‘All the Same’, it’s clear that Bradford Cox and co are picking up from Halcyon Digest, bringing back chiming, melodic guitars and a gentler sound, reminiscent of guitarist Lockett Pundt’s side-project Lotus Plaza, or bands such as Real Estate or DIIV. The song ‘Duplex Planet’ is a case in point, with its memorable hook and wonderfully playful harpsichord part making it instantly enjoyable. And despite the album’s overall dreamy tone, there are still hints of the lo-fi garage rock stylings of 2013’s Monomania, with lead single ‘Snakeskin’ being the obvious example.

However, as expected, the contents of this 36-minute album, Deerhunter’s shortest by far, are still full of surprises. After the raw noise and distortion of Monomania two years ago, they seem to have made a complete U-turn, instead favouring swelling synthesisers, delicately sung melodies, and chorus-laden guitars. On the surface, ‘Breaker’ is Deerhunter at their most generic – simply structured, with a singalong chorus and sparkling guitars – however, never one to conform entirely, Bradford Cox accompanies this beautiful, seemingly happy music with his typically morbid lyrics: “And when I die / There will be nothing to say / Except I tried / Not to waste another day / Trying to stem the tide”.

Even more surprising is that the only songwriting contribution from guitarist Lockett Pundt, the exquisite ‘Ad Astra’, is utterly devoid of the beautifully intricate guitars that normally fill his songs. Instead, the song is based around the simple combination of an offbeat bassline and various different synth lines – the result is truly magnificent. The song itself is relatively simple, but the way the repeated melodies and synths build and build until their triumphant drum-heavy climax is worth sacrificing complexity for.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Deerhunter album without its share of weirdness, and the track ‘Leather and Wood’ more than satisfies that need. A repetitive, dissonant piano line spans the length of the six-minute song; other elements come and go, including Cox’s howling vocals, modified guitars and bizarre electronic noises, making for one of the strangest pieces of music the band has ever made.

The final song, ‘Carrion’, is relatively unremarkable, and in fact quite a disappointing closer musically, but its title and lyrics provide a window into the way that they work as a band. While many of the band’s lyrics conjure images of death and decay (“I was the corpse that spiralled out” being a personal favourite from ‘Octet’ on Cryptograms), the clever wordplay within the song transforms the word into the exultant cry; “Carry on!” providing a forward-looking finish to an album which has yet again proved Deerhunter to be an important band, whose constant experiments with texture and style always produce something worth thinking about.