Deerhoof - Deerhoof Vs Evil
- Written by Russell Warfield
Deerhoof vs. Evil is the sort of record whose very title doubles as a pretty serviceable review of the music. You just know what a record with a title like that is going to sound like. In a recent review, I wrote that debut albums are often like a band throwing shit at a wall. But ten albums into their career Deerhoof are far from shaking that aesthetic off, and are instead taking it to unprecedented heights. To say that Deerhoof vs. Evil is a ‘kitchen sink’ affair would be to do the band a disservice: it’s infinitely more wilfully scrapheap than that. Following every single whimsical flight of fancy should never result in something as listenable as this. But, remarkably, Deerhoof continue to be one of those bands who paradoxically sharpen their unmistakable identity the more that they flee from any sense of artistic centrality.
That’s one half of Deerhoof’s success sort-of accounted for then. But the other half of Deerhoof’s success is a lot simpler to identify: they make lots of really good music. Indeed, with the surface level craziness distracting you from its inner workings, it’s often easy to ignore the intricate craft of the musicianship itself; angular riffs bouncing off of each other, interlocked in weird time signatures, crazy sounds giving rise to weirder noise. And whilst none of these songs have anything approaching traditional structures, that’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of addictive refrains on offer here. ‘Behold a Marvel in the Darkness’ bounces along on peppy acoustic strumming, before losing itself in a gorgeous hook of “oooh-ah-oooh-ohhh”s while the aforementioned ‘Super Duper Rescue Heads!’ charmingly coos with a mantra like refrain of “me to the rescue!”
Sometimes these repetitive vocal refrains get up your nose rather than into your head, but if the songs ever begin to grate or get stuck in a rut, you can bet that Deerhoof will change to a different tack within a few bars or so. Just as the refrain of “this is not based on a true story” begins to get stagnant in ‘Secret Mobilization’ as it shadows the clunky riff far too doggedly, the thing suddenly explodes into a glam-rock stomp of searing guitars. Fucking right! Indeed, Deerhoof vs. Evil is a collection of songs which are overstuffed with unrelated ideas, but it sidesteps the criticism of being oversaturated. It should be a challenging listen, but somehow they manage to keep the cake light. Sure, there’s nothing on here as immediate as the “choo choo choo choo beep beep” choruses of their 2007 record ‘Friend Opportunity’, but this record sees Deerhoof continue to expand their experimentalism whilst retaining the endearing qualities which made them appealing in the first place.