Deerhoof
When I was a kid, I got a book of Brothers Grimm fairytales from the library and was shocked to see that the original stories were nothing like the picture book versions my parents had been reading to me. They were magical and whimsical, but they were also full of gruesome and gory bits that had been left out of the Little Golden Books versions. This was a disturbing discovery for me, but also an exciting one.
In my mind, San Francisco's Deerhoof share the same mental cubby as the Grimm Bros - they are childlike and playful one moment and fierce and gnarled the next. Often, they are both at the same time. They rock like a spiky teddy-bear.
Conventional wisdom dictates that they are a "difficult" band, and should take some time to get used to. But I knew that I liked them the moment I heard them. Though their music is clearly directed at horn-rimmed indie kids and features complex spaz-riffs and tricky time signatures, it is hardly intellectual. It's a compact, caffeinated rush, designed to get as many synapses firing at once as possible. They rock harder, pop cuter, and weird weirder than any other band going, and they do it all at the same time. That is the initial joy of Deerhoof - the overwhelming headrush of trying to take it all in at once. But repeated listens prove even more rewarding, as the hooks start to sink into your brain. The thrill of hearing them careen headlong into some wild riff only becomes greater if you are anticipating it.
And their most recent album, last year's The Runners Four found them reaching new heights. It doesn't have quite the same ice cream headache appeal as previous peaks Apple O' or Reveille, but it shows lead singer Satomi Matsuzaki stretching out as a songwriter. All the things that have always made Deerhoof exciting are still present on the album, but the highs are further apart, and thus all the more rewarding. Plus, she is no longer writing lyrics like "panda panda panda." Her lyrics are still playful, but they are clever and well thought-out, adding to both the cuteness and the intelligence factors. But the things that ultimately make The Runners Four such a winner are the same things that have always made Deerhoof great - garage rock energy, sloppy-virtuosic musicianship, and a heaping fistful of fractured melodies - all colliding into one joyous insanity.
Oh, and play it loud.
But not around other people.
2 comments:
I'm working my way through their albums (but I've been downloading so much lately, its hard to listen to it all)! I've liked what I've heard so far, but I wasn't a fan of "The Man The King The Girl" - it was a little too free form for me; I like distortion and feedback and pure noise more than most, but that one seemed completely astructural.
I've got the two Yeah Yeah Yeahs LPs too, and they rock. It's refreshing to have found some girl-fronted rock; Karen O has a rockstar voice for sure. There certainly aren't any decent ones in the mainstream any more, these days.
I just saw a band called Wax on Radio at our local coffee house, and thought they were totally awesome, in your sense of the word. They were somewhat similar to Muse or The Mars Volta. Not sure if you like those bands, but I'm a growing fan.
I haven't heard "The Man The King The Girl." That was their very first album and, as I understand it, their more recent work is much more rewarding. I would be interested to hear that, though.
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