More than just noise

San Francisco's Deerhoof is one of those bands that incite strong feelings of either love or hate depending on who's speaking about them. On one hand you have inventive, off-kilter pop fireworks and thoroughly challenging and yet exciting music. On the other, you have a weirdo Japanese girl mumbling, screeching and blithering baby-talk lyrics over improper-fraction time signatures and loud, loud noises. When they played at last summer's Intonation Festival in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune referred to their performance as "band practice with the Muppets."\nStill, despite the extreme reaction they provoke, Deerhoof has always been very listenable when at their peak. Fortunately, their new album The Runners Four is far more consistent than any of their numerous prior releases (the best of which was probably Apple O' or Milk Man). It starts out with the milky, warbled guitar chords of "Chatterboxes," a song in which Satomi Matsuzaki's lyrics are lively and entirely unintelligible. However, the next song, "Twin Killers," is one of the happiest, coolest and most approachable Deerhoof songs ever (better even than "Milk Man"). This song alone guarantees the album a passing grade.\n"Running Thoughts" is seriously reminiscent (in chord structure and vocals) of some kind of well-produced Velvet Underground and Nico B-side. It turns into an epic, noisy jam as it wears on, leaving the listener wondering if this is the same band that was behind such horrendous clunkers as "Dog on the Sidewalk."\n"O'Malley, Former Underdog" sounds like the end music to a Japanese video game played by asylum inmates on speed, and yet it's so happy. "Spirit Ditties of No Tone" is a glittery, multi-faceted pop song with jaw-dropping slide guitar work and a rhythm section that sounds like tribal beats with awesome drum fills.\nThis is the longest album that Deerhoof has ever released, and it's by far the most coherent and put-together. At times, however, it seems like Deerhoof goes out on an experimental limb by not annoying the listener with sudden jerky changes and booby-trapped songs that start out good and end with you going deaf. It always seemed like they were capable of it and yet they tried as hard as they could to get on your nerves.\nConsidering this band's penchant for changing styles about every six months, I just hope that whatever they do, they keep getting better. As it stands, The Runners Four is an irresistibly quirky gem that manages to not annoy. Who would have thought?