Review Summary: L-l-l-l-l-l-liiiiiight!
Let's get right to it: Deerhoof can be pretty annoying. I've explored about every nook and cranny of their 20-song
The Runners Four, released in 2005, and I still don't get how I actually
like this ***. On the instrumental side, things can get pretty rough: bits and pieces of unexpected dissonance, noise, and mis-rhythms are thrown at you just when you think you might be able to start humming along. Vocally, the album is...different, certainly. Excluding a few (including standout "Odyssey"), turn on any song here and you're going to be subjected to one of the least accessible voices on the indie rock scene today. Satomi Matsuzaki's screechy, nearly unintelligible voice gives her an ability to twist around the band's lyrics to the point of no return, where they sound like alien messages delivered by an obliviously enthusiastic frontwoman.
Of course, Matsuzaki's voice is, to any Deerhoof fan, a staple of what makes the band enjoyable: their amount of strangeness, mixed with a sense of fun (and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of when to stop). If I knew such a comparison wouldn't get shot down, Deerhoof could almost be called a less serious, less scary Sonic Youth, with their same appreciation of rock riffs and an avant-garde sensibility. This balance drives the majority of
The Runners Four, from its almost uncomfortably dissonant opener "Chatterboxes" to its stuttering closer, "Rrrrrrright" (forgive me for this one, but as Matsuzaki would say: "L-l-l-l-l-l-light").
Deerhoof cover a lot of ground throughout the album's 20 songs, occasionally calming down (such as on the acoustic and uncharacteristically beautiful "Odyssey") or freaking out (check out noise-fest "Midnight Bicycle Mystery"). Mostly, though, the same manic impulses motivate the band's decisions, and, for the uninitiated, it can be tiring. However, Deerhoof throw in more than enough variation and great songwriting to, at the very least, keep the listener interested. If you appreciate your indie rock with a little bit of "what the ***" thrown in, you might even fall in love with it.
"Storytime in your wildest mind / What a wonderful / Magic animal"
