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Deerhoof La Isla Bonita Jagiaguwar

14.11.14

Nearly a dozen stylistically capricious albums have taken San Franciscan foursome Deerhoof from the fringes of the Bay Area punk scene back in 1994 to the vanguard of art rock today. Arriving as it does on the 20th anniversary of the group’s formation, it’s tempt- ing to frame this 12th full-length effort as some kind of portentous, milestone-burdened statement. In fact, La Isla Bonita – named after Madonna’s 1986 kitsch classic – is just another decent album from a noise pop group who’ve recorded more than their fair share.

Deerhoof have never been paragons of lyrical profundity and there’s not exactly a Proustian about-turn here (“Too many choices to order breakfast” is the gravest predicament facing vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki on Ramones-aping lead single Exit Only). Nor is any kind of epochal musical transformation at hand, with whimsical skittishness still characterising everything from the fractured palm-muted riffs of opener Paradise Girls to the pop sensibility of Black Pitch and the outright rhythmic schizophrenia of Doom.

Of course, consistent inconsistency is both Deerhoof’s biggest asset and greatest weakness and La Isla Bonita doesn’t buck the trend. For every eminently listenable song, like the gorgeously languid Mirror Monster, there’s another like Last Fad with one too many ideas, or Big House Waltz and its grating vocal tics. The result is another genre-bending outing that’s always interesting, if perhaps not always enjoyable.