Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity

Deerhoof
Friend Opportunity
[Kill Rock Stars, 2007]

‘The Perfect Me’ opens the record at a riotous pace, and listeners will quickly understand that the Deerhoof of 2007 is a more precise animal than evidenced by the noisier songs of their early output. This time the San Francisco trio wants to rock in a slightly more conventional manner. Of course, for this arty band convention is a slippery concept. Think of how David Bowie returned to the fold by releasing his famed Berlin records after Station to Station and you might get a sense of how Deerhoof views convention. Some of the band's ideas are a bit retro: the slinky riff at the heart of ‘Believe E.S.P.’ comes straight from 1973, vintage Orange tone intact. Others are a little more inspired by modern electronic cacophony.

Throughout the album, drummer Greg Saunier provides a loose, busy, and muscular rhythmic foundation that sounds like how drums were played before metal made precision famous. The chorus of ‘Matchbox Seeks Maniac’ would not have sounded too out of place in one of Pete Townsend’s operas. Of course, the band’s fractured, video-game-like compositional aesthetic keeps things far more interesting than simple rock nostalgia suggests. And Satomi Matsuzaki’s twee vocal performance of fairytale-epic lyrics is as childishly saccharine as ever. All this cacophony might be expected by longtime fans, but it is this album’s melodic cohesion that ranks Friend Opportunity among the best of this prolific band’s career.

MP3: Deerhoof - The Perfect Me