Coloring outside the lines

Rock music, in its eternal quest for elusive cool, has always concerned itself with adopting the quintessential drama of teenage existence. And while this has remained true from Buddy Holly to the Rolling Stones, the fact of the matter is most rock bands are searching for some eternal kind of youth, though not usually the type of youthfulness explored by San Francisco's Deerhoof.

Deerhoof makes a radical break from rock music. As a veteran of the independent-rock scene, the band has cut a total of six albums in almost 10 years of existence with a remarkable consistency in quality, if not in approach. In light of this fact, it is remarkable that a band which puts so much effort into creating gorgeous, if off-kilter, pop music is taken so seriously in spite of having lyrics like "Panda panda/panda panda pan/Panda" in a song called "Panda Panda Panda."

But while seriousness of style is not something that concerns Deerhoof explicitly, it is clear upon listening to the band's breathtaking scope that this is not simple music. "Angular" becomes an insufficient word to describe a band that sounds so straightforward and perhaps even naive at the same time. But as the band's grating guitar textures and trash-can-driven rhythms complement harmonies all too similar to childhood lullabies, it can be the only way to describe a band that searches for the sublime in the simplest places.