Deerhoof has always thrived on chaos, but with their 19th or 20th, whose counting really, Noble and Godlike in Ruin, the Bay Area experimental rockers refine their signature unpredictability into something strangely cohesive—and sometimes utterly mesmerizing. Their latest offering is a whirlwind of jagged riffs, off-kilter rhythms, and Satomi Matsuzaki’s ever-enchanting vocals, all wrapped in the band’s trademark playfulness. Yet, beneath the surface, there’s a newfound sense of melancholy, as if the album is both celebrating and mourning the fracture of beauty and existence.
From the opening track, “Overrated Species Anyhow,” Deerhoof sets the tone with subtle dissonant guitar stabs and lurching, swaying drums, immediately pulling the listener into their surreal world. Songs like “Sparrow Sparrow” and “Kingtoe” showcase the band’s ability to balance childlike whimsy with avant-garde complexity, while “Return of Return of the Fire Trick Star,” veers into almost orchestral grandeur, proving once again, that Deerhoof can be as emotionally resonant as they are technically and noisily bewildering. Parts of “Return… reminds me of wintessing Apple O‘ for the first time.
Production-wise, the album is raw yet meticulously crafted, with each instrument—Greg Saunier’s frenetic drumming, John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez’s tangled guitars, and Matsuzaki’s hypnotic basslines—given room to breathe while still colliding in glorious cacophony. The result is an album that feels both spontaneous and deliberate, as if the band is constantly on the verge of collapse yet always landing on their feet. I’ll admit that as far as full Deerhoof albums, I’ve probably listened in full to about five, but Noble and Godlike in Ruin just further cements them as one of the world’s weirdest and most interesting bands still doing this off-brand avant-garde experimental rock it.
