Album Review: Deerhoof - Breakup Song

Deerhoof
Breakup Song
Rating: Grrrr

As my good friend Matthew will attest, I do not like Deerhoof. On more than one occasion he has tried to slip some of their music past me and every time I know its them and make him stop. There is just something about their herky-jerky music that does not speak to me. Earlier albums to me sound like 8 bands competing to be heard over one another, turning into a cacophonous mess. So with heavy brow and intense reluctance, I loaded the new Deerhoof record Breakup Song into my player and, shockingly, I wasn't immediately repulsed. In fact, I was almost immediately drawn in. While it was still bordering on cacophony, there was a control and balance there I had never heard from them before. While the title of the record Breakup Song sounds like it would refer to a cycle of breakup songs, in fact, it more or less describes the sound of the record perfectly. Each track feels like it is on the verge of disintegrating into chaos, but somehow, for the most part, the record stays on course. This tension makes for some amazingly fucked up pop songs.

Over a tight 11 songs and 30 minute run time, Breakup Song doesn't saunter and meander at all. Kicking off with the sludgy beats and crunchy guitars of title track "Breakup Songs" it sounds like a punkier Cibo Matto, with singer Satomi Matsuzaki's sing-song vocals and chants over the not quite chaotic mesh. Leading into the brisk art-funk of "There's That Grin" with the simple lyrics of "there's that grin/don't make me/fall/in love with you again," as the glass shattering guitars pepper shots all over the tight groove.

In fact, the front of the album is just pitch perfect (and some might say, front loaded). The skittering beats and dreamy keyboards of "Bad Kids To The Front" recall Stereolab on acid. While album highlight "Zero Seconds Pause" is a dense pool of pounding beats, fuzzy beats, and air raid siren synths.



Smmooth, jazzy organs and funk guitars rave up "Flower" while "Fete Adieu" is almost the most mainstream sounding track Deerhoof has ever made, and could easily be heard on more progressive pop stations.



The only complaints I have with the record are mainly with the back half, which has a noticeable drop off in quality from the almost perfect first half. Bombastic "To Fly Or Not To Fly" can't seem to find its path, veering from almost doom metal guitar riffs to synth freakout to discoey synth pop and back again, all in the brief span of 2 minutes; "We Do Parties" bops along on a poppy synth bass, horseshoe clops, and Matsuki's laconic vocals with spiky bursts of surf guitar; while "The Trouble With Candyhands" has a fun marimba style melodic line that is upended by a fairly pedestrian pop chorus.



Breakup Song does nothing to make me change my mind about their earlier output (sorry Matthew), but was a complete and utter surprise to me that (a) I actually liked it at all, and (b) that I liked it as much as I do. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be saying that a Deerhoof album was likely to be included in my best of lists for the end of the year. I guess pigs are flying and hell is chilly.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.