Search - Deerhoof :: Reveille

Deerhoof across the age divide

happydogpotatohead | New Orleans, LA USA | 11/26/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"25 Year-Old: This band is amazing! Have you heard these guys?43 Year-Old: Yeah, I have. This is a good band for sure.25-Year-Old: You're not as enthusiastic as you should be! These guys are doing something DIFFERENT!43-year-old: Well, not really. The jump-cut editing and the noise bursts combined with the freaky jamming remind me a lot of Faust, especially on Faust's first album. 25-year-old: Are you saying they're imitating Faust? And who's Faust? You mean DJ Faust?43-year-old: NO. Faust was a band of insane German hippies who made some really interesting records in the 1970's that influenced a lot of people. Go look up "So Far" by Faust on Amazon. And Deerhoof is not imitating Faust, that's not what I'm saying. 25-year-old: So what ARE you saying, you old coot?43-year-old: Watch it, kid, you'll be my age someday. What I am saying is that Deerhoof has the same sense of uninhibited experimentalism that Faust had. They sound like they just don't give a flip what anybody thinks and they want to play whatever they want, which is really cool in this corporate rock era. 25-year-old: So you *do* get it.43-year-old: Of course I do. Listen, punk, I knew about "noise rock" before you were even dirtying your diapers properly. Back in my day we used to call it "art rock" and that's what this is. It's good art rock, with a lot of energy and freakishness. Plus, I like the singer and her weird "The animals will testify against us on Judgment Day" pronouncement on the first song.25-year-old: That's the second song.43-year-old: Whatever. I don't consider 30 seconds of bells and burping a song.25-year-old: You don't think rap is music either.43-year-old: Don't get me started. Let's just be glad that Deerhoof is a great band that we can both agree on, OK?"

Shining Star of 2002

Michael Alexander | New Haven, CT United States | 03/26/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After two albums of clever noise, Deerhoof has the audacity to drop one of the catchiest albums of the last 5 years. Take formidable blasts of raw but soaring, often dissonant guitar, plenty of wild studio trickery, some seriously sugary melodies, and an incessantly cute Japanese chick on vocals, and you only have the ingredients, because the warped noise-pop coming out of your speakers will stick in your head for WEEKS. Very few of the songs sound anything like each other, and they're played so earnestly and unbelaboredly that it sounds as if the band could churn them out at this quality for eternity (and, well, the similar-but-even-more-accessible follow-up Apple O proves that they're far from done). Almost nobody sounds like Deerhoof, and if you like noise- or avant-pop, the music that makes you go giddy with simple enjoyment before you realize just how _interesting_ it is, click the buy button before you have the chance to change your mind. Trust me: this is a tremendous album that never feels like one. It's so simply _GOOD_ you'll forget it's also Great."

Yoko Ono's Thinking Fellers sing Sonic Youth

slappy | somewhere else | 06/23/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Despite my moderately retarded intro title above, you can't really describe Deerhoof by lame-o comparisons. It's scuzzed-out guitar rock experimentations that veer toward the precipice, only to pull back into awesome melodies and even quirky pop.This record is "sing-along-noise"...and that's a real compliment in my universe."