Featuring a thunderous rhythm section unafraid to venture into lockstepped odd grooves, a guitar team willing to weave in and out of those sonic pylons in tandem, and a beguiling childlike voice floating above it all, this is your standard Deerhoof.
While pop punk takes the energy and intensity of hardcore music and strips away all the negativity and rough edges, this is punk pop, like pouring maple syrup over a big coil of barbed wire.
Over forty years ago, Fleetwood Mac was giving the Eagles a run for their money as Most Ubiquitous Band in America, and a big part of that was Buckingham’s uniquely sophisticated songwriting and unrecognized guitar prowess, both on display here.
It has been a while since we have heard from this band, with its brutally catchy hooks and ultra-refined pop sensibility, delivering velvet hammer blows with the gentlest vocal harmonies and delicate guitar plucks.
Pure unbridled joy bursts forth from the moment these young Beninese women begin doing their thing. Even if liquid song structures and single-voiced group singing aren’t normally your thing, you should give it a taste.
Bombastic pop filled with lush arrangements, bizarre chord extensions, and unexpected harmonies aren’t everyone’s cup of kombucha, but those of us that have acquired the taste will drink this stuff by the gallon.
Glittery pop vocals fronting a relentless barrage of digital soundbites, shy loops emerging from behind percussive blasts as guitars interrupt with fuzzed yelps or delicate strums… it’s a little bit of everything, and sometimes just enough.
When you’re closing out your fifth decade as a band, you might be expected to rehash all your tired tropes and package them as brand new nostalgia. Instead, this sounds like a lost album from the band’s golden era.
A strong, sometimes raspy female voice in front of a very clever power indie band can be the equivalent of beige wallpaper after all these years, but this outfit rises above that with a generous dose of unique hooks and singalong rhymes.
“Charmingly abrasive” sounds like an oxymoron, but it is certainly something that describes music like this, angular sounds and a distraught female voice rambling on about blue tits, and I don’t think she means birds.
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