Album Review by: Rachael Daughters "DJ Peaches"

As the title suggested, I listened to Deerhoof’s newer album, Miracle-Level, that came out this year. Deerhoof is a San Francisco based band consisting of three people, Satomi Matsuzaki, Ed Rodriguez, and John Dieterich. They formed in 1994 and have put out 17 albums. As of June 14th, they have 152,445 listeners on Spotify. This album is their first to be fully recorded in a recording studio. All of their previous albums, to an extent, have been self-made. Very little can be found about the background of the album itself, as it came out March 31st 2023, and the review is being written as of June 14th, 2023.

I would describe their sound on this album as indie rock, and on some tracks as indie pop. Throughout the album, Matsuzaki sings purely in Japanese, which makes it easier to focus on the vocals instead of the lyrics, however I do think it’s fun to see if what the track names (which are in English) are what I would envision them to sound like. For example, there’s a track name called “My Lovely Cat!” (The most popular song off the album), and it’s this very hard rock sort of song. I would expect something called “My Lovely Cat!” to be more mellow or something, but I’m certainly not complaining. 

My favorite song off the album is the third track, “The Poignant Melody”, which is mostly an instrumental song until about midway through, where the vocals kick back in. It leans more on the side of indie pop instead of indie rock like the rest of the album, with softer guitar, simple vocals, and minimal drums.  

Overall, I really liked this album. I thought it was fun, and for sure something that is outside my normal wheelhouse of music. I’m glad I found the album, but I’m not convinced that their music is for me.

Click HERE to listen to the album!