Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil (Album)
» Sugar Mountain Festival 2012 First Line Up Announcement - September 26, 2011
Californian experimental indie rock outfit Deerhoof have just released studio album number ten, ‘Deerhoof vs. Evil’. Ten albums since 1997 is a pretty decent effort, yet this is their first long player since 2008. For those not familiar with the band, they’re rather hard to define, and are basically lo-fi indie pop with a female singer.
The reviews I’ve come across of this album have been largely positive, however I’m not going to let that change my opinion of ‘Deerhoof vs. Evil’. It has charming moments and some nice instrumentation throughout the album, however overall it feels like some thrown together noise and is not a coherent release at all. In fact Santomi Matsuzaki’s vocals are more like ambient noise or a backseat instrument as opposed to the anchor of each track as most vocals should be. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether the lyrics are in english or not. Matsuzaki’s accent is not the problem, if anything her accent is the one of the redeeming features of the album. Perhaps I’m just against mixing that sees the vocals quieter than the backing music.
I’m not saying no one will like this album, the other positive reviews prove that not to be the case. However your chances of stumbling upon this album and liking it if you are not already a fan or currently listen to this kind of purpose made low production music are slim. The band’s name probably puts a lot of people off too, before listening to the band I had expected them to be heavy rock if not metal. To hear soft female vocals and minimalist instrumentation was rather a surprise.
There is a couple of tracks on here that I don’t mind. Perhaps the best being the very soft and slightly sad ‘No One Asked to Dance’ which could slot perfectly into a farewell scene in an indie flick. ‘Let’s Dance the Jet’ brings the sound up for the first time on the disc and demands the listener pay attention despite being a wholly instrumental song. While these two and a few other tracks aren’t bad, nothing on the album really stands out, and songs do start to sound the same.
Current fans may enjoy ‘Deerhoof vs. Evil’, but for the rest of us, album number ten from the San Francisco four piece isn’t a must have for 2012.
