Deerhoof Future Teenage Cave Artists

Have you gradually lost track of Deerhoof over the course of 20-plus years and 15 or so albums? If so, latest LP Future Teenage Cave Artists plays like a perfect re-entry point, what with bassist Satomi Matsuzaki and drummer Greg Saunier singing about a dystopian world—oh wait, that’s our actual, broken reality—atop the foursome’s organized sonic chaos. “Every morning I check if I have died,” Saunier intones eerily on “Reduced Guilt,” before Matsuzaki (barely) reassures us, “I have survived.”

Deerhoof has survived changing times and tastes by staying true to its muse, one that insists experimental music be catchy, or maybe it’s the other way around. Among this latest batch of songs, the shimmering leadoff/title track should make the quickest trip to 2020 playlists. But one by one, the other nine originals—from (relative) slow jam “Damaged Eyes Squinting Into the Beautiful Overhot Sun” to the body-moving “Oh Ye Saddle Babes,” which finds Matsuzaki repeating “Can’t we all just get along, little doggies?”—will tunnel into your brain, and especially your heart, as beautifully damaged pieces of art in a time when damage threatens to overtake beauty entirely.