Man, the King, the Girl

On their second full-length, San Francisco band Deerhoof continues its reckless recombination of noise, abstraction, and the occasional turn to structure -- while the album's free-form noisefests come somewhere between the Boredoms and Caroliner. Deerhoof frequently brings this experimentation full circle into fuzzy, out-of-control pop territory ("A-Town Test Site," "Polly Bee"). The alternation between abstraction and structure (with both underpinned by raw live drumming and female vocals) seems to work better than either would by itself, appealing to both ends of the noisy, unstructured pop spectrum. The Man, The King, The Girl also includes five tracks from one of the bands' live performances. ~ Nitsuh Abebe