Deerhoof Vs. Evil

Deerhoof
Deerhoof vs. Evil
Reviewed: 10/19/10

It's Joao Gilberto meets Francoise Hardy meets a barrel of sludge-- you pare this down, it has the DNA of mid-'60s lounge, ye-ye, and bubblegum. But the sound is rich-- all sorts of interesting noises and textures and distortion and weird freaking stuff. So much fuzz, so much distortion-- but also one of the catchier albums in recent memory. This is really just superb-- a lot to love for just about everybody.

Everything here is great; no FCCs.

1. * Sung in Catalan, with bongos and chimes and other jingling things. And noise-- computery sounds played in reverse, odd synths. Still a very sweet sound. (3:12)
2. * “Look Into the Sky”/”What is this Thing Called Love?” – sweet strumming and naïve chanting interspersed with fuzzed out Nintendo guitars and traffic-like bleeps and bloops. (3:29)
3. ** Some muffled buzzsaws, a lonely guitar strumming in a cave. Mopey male singing about atomic bombs, then she comes in, with a noisy call-and-response. And later, the tempo goes into triple-speed! Then some ugly feedback and screeching. Lot of stuff here. (3:31)
4. *God, she's pipey. High-pitched singing, joined to Flamenco-esque guitar. A sad folk melody... then a harpsichord joins. (2:16)
5. **Instrumental-- Crazy evil organ, sounding like a telephone ringing. Weirdly scary and driving-- like some mix of a Vincent Price movie score and a James Bond score, all baroque and purply. (1:36)
6. '80s synth noodling, then some off-kilter chanteuse-ing: “Me to the Rescue.” Ultra-fuzzy wall of guitars. (2:35)
7. Ambient lot of percussion, blips and bloops-- then overlapping singing-- she's doing her normal thing, he's basically talking. (2:53)
8. * Jumpy garage guitar-- “This is not based on a true story.” The return of the slinky evil organ! Just slinky all over-- buzzing and … at the end, power ballad solo! (3:03)
9. * Gurgling start, with jangling keys, unbalanced jibberish-scat singing. “Hey hey hey hey hey.” Then some Mr. Roboto or ELO-like backup. (2:13)
10. Japanese singing... pops along. (2:07)
11. *** Some Bowie-esque acoustic guitar, hand claps. “This is a stick-up” “Smash the windows.” Synthetic yelps. The voice recedes, other textures rise to front... weird, awesome perky middle bridge, and more thunderclaps of noise. (3:09)
12. Not a lot going on on this one... I'd skip. (2:41)

-Hervey Okkles