40 :: Deerhoof

Deerhoof are everything on this list, all at once. They are the dissonant, jagged avant-gardists; the quiet minimalists crooning over soothing atmospherics; the unrepentant noise act whose frantic tempo changes jerk the listener around, shatter eardrums, offend tender sensibilities; and the garage rockers blasting surf hooks bred from chaos. But on Reveille more than on any other Deerhoof record, permeating and overriding the glut of personalities is a childlike innocence that comes not from unsophistication or tinny toy synthesizers, but from an unbridled spontaneity, from guilelessness; this is the band having the fun that Deerhoof should have. There’s adolescent gleefulness to the noise, a cheekiness to the pop fragments, and a playfulness to the lullaby tags and parallel-octave sing-alongs that are about nothing less (or more) than enjoying the process of playing and listening to music. So much of the decade’s best music, including a good chunk of our top 100, is serious, humorless, even dour stuff. Here’s the bailout.