There's a high you get from the classic 1970s "art-rock" of Yes, Genesis, or King Crimson-- and when it hits, there's nothing like it. I'm not talking about the way other music peaks, like a dance track where the beat kicks in and the crowd goes berzerk, or metal music that gets louder and louder until your skull caves, or gutbucket singers who can make your heart jump out of your chest. With art-rock, there's a lot of mumbo-jumbo and funny time signatures, and sometimes there's like 10 or 15 minutes of really boring shit (see: Yes, "Awaken"). But when the "good part" hits? Holy shit-- the band crescendos and the singer, smooth as silk but loud as God, rams Buddha down the throat of a giant silver dragon. If I sound like I'm growing a mullet, I've done my job.
Deerhoof, an indie band who have released plenty of discombobulated pop and no wave albums, have lately turned toward accessible, foot-stomping rock. It worked on The Runners Four, but it works better and quicker on their new album, Friend Opportunity. We've been using the term "inde prog" mostly to describe bands that quick-cut between ideas and construct mini-suites out of mini-songs. But on this record Deerhoof take everything that clique of indie bands has worked toward-- add the suddenly popular twee vocals-- and ride it like an h-bomb.
If it weren't for Satomi Matsuzaki's little-girl voice, this music would be demagoguery: concussive beats, stabbing horn fills, pounding drums, a guitar chord that lands like a 10-ton weight on a 20-ton trampoline. I've never been more aware of the attack of an electric piano. And while a new love of knob-twiddling and loop-peddling brings more tonal colors, they're here for percussion, not atmosphere.
I didn't even want to make out all the words, in case I'd screw up the Obi Wan-spanks-Zelda Hero's Journey I had in my head in tracks one through nine. Snatches of story-like lyrics-- the stage-setting of "The Perfect Me", the flashes of conflict, warnings that "It's a trap"-- imply a narrative arc, with a detour for a new character on "Cast Off Crown", drummer Greg Saunier's sole vocal performance and a mini-epic that crams introduction, exposition, and resolution into three minutes.
The rest of the vocals are held down again by the high, heavily-accented singing of Matsuzaki. And the more song-like Deerhoof's music gets, the more obviously she becomes a barrier to new fans. The bleep-bloop speak-singing of "Kidz are So Small" seems to be the dealbreaker-- like you shouldn't take anything so sweet and cute seriously. (Listen to that gristly bleep in the background: that's a fucking droid, dude.) But wait 'til you hear the climactic "Matchbook Seeks Maniac": Jesus, Matsuzaki is the homecoming queen from Saturn, complete with silver glitter makeup and hip-side death ray. She rides the album's peak in the main chorus-- "I would sell my soul to the devil/ If I could be the top of the world"-- and when she belts the title phrase? It makes me quail.
Only thing is, after that 24-minute binge we get the 12-minute hangover of "Look Away". Like a rambling, shapeless homage to Yes' "Sound Chaser", it's listenable and it has a great instrumental traffic jam at the midpoint, but on this record it's just an appendix. All of a sudden the band is back to silences and blank stares, sustained tones and reverbed guitars. They're "deconstructing pop," which means they're asking questions. But on Friend Opportunity, Deerhoof work best when they blast right to the answers.
