No actually, it wasn’t. Apple ‘O was a great fucking album … dick. In retrospect it was Deerhoof’s turning point into respectability. After the feedback explorations of their early albums, and the awesomely free-ranging creativity of Reveille, Apple ‘O was the moment when Deerhoof seemed to realize that they were actually a pop band all along. Continuing along this path to clean-cut respectability was last year’s Milk Man which sanded down the band’s rougher edges, and the awesomely awesome Green Cosmos EP, easily the best thing the band has ever released, jerk.

The Runners Four is the Deerhoof album for non-Deerhoof fans, see? For those like you, my poor close-minded friend, The Runners Four may be what finally makes you ‘get’ just what it is that makes Deerhoof so fucking cool to me and Bob Dole both. Unlike the spikey explosions of Apple ‘O, the organ-driven sounds of Milk Man, or the layered symphonics of Green Cosmos, Runners Four is a very traditional kind of guitar rock album. It finds the band scaling back the sonic ambitions of their last few recordings and the noisy experiments of early albums, and focusing instead on song-craft and instrumental interplay. You like that kind of stuff, right? Well, it works in the band’s favor beautifully. Let me phrase that simpler for you: Runners Four has some of best songs the band has ever written on it.

Take for instance the fantastic “Running Thoughts”, which is driven by little more than fast bass octaves and erratic, sporadic Dismemberment Plan style drums. Subtle organs make their appearance on the bridge, and the vintage ‘60s style reverb on Satomi’s voice, as well as the gorgeously restrained melody and minimal, understated instrumentation, make the song feel like a weird lost Zombies song. Until the Sonic Youth noise crescendo on the outro that is, at which point you’ll likely to remember just who it is you’re listening to. It’s one of the group’s most accessible tracks yet, but without sacrificing what is that makes the band so interesting and unique.

As strange as it seems, this ‘60s pop aesthetic, particularly that of the Zombies, forms the foundation for much of The Runner’s Four. You like that kind of shit, right friend? You can almost hear the band dissecting tracks like “She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No” and figuring out how something so restrained and simple could be so good, and then applying that knowledge to their own formerly chaotic material. Like “Spirit Ditties of No Tone”, which transforms from a verse that retains that ‘60s pop feel to an instrumental chorus that’s taken from some insane disco on Mars Colony AD 2100. Harmonized guitars slide and flash like laser beams over a perfectly syncopated rhythm–it has to be one of the coolest sounds the band has ever found.

This aesthetic also happens to make The Runners Four the band’s most conventional album. No more strings, horns, keyboards, drum machines, or crazy studio manipulations: just guitar, bass, and drums. It is less cutesy and less noisy then anything else they’ve done. No more songs about bunnies and pandas. Also gone are the band’s almost sickenly-sweet J-pop melodies, replaced with more mature, emotionally-resonant vocals and quiet songs. That’s certainly not a bad thing, as songs like “Spirit Ditties of No Tone” and “Running Thoughts” are unique and weird as anything Deerhoof has ever done, but Runners Four lacks the immediate mindblowing punch of other Deerhoof excursions. On the other hand these new songs don’t wear themselves out nearly as easily as the old ones, relying on great song craft rather than surprises, twists, and strange juxtapositions. You’re gonna love it, I swear. It’s not all “just noise,” ya jerk.

It’s also the longest Deerhoof album ever, with 20 songs clocking in at around a full hour. Its almost like listening to an early Wire or Minutemen album, as the songs are short and incredibly dense, mostly clocking in around two minutes as they blast their way through great ideas with little extraneous fat and no distractions. This conventionality is almost a ruse to lure new listeners in, or convert those misguided souls like you, my friend, who failed to understand the band on their own terms.

In some places, the album is easily as noisy as Apple ‘O, but those places are mostly scattered across the album’s final third, and well-prepared by the direction of the song beforehand. The first hint of real noise is on “Midnight Bicycle Mystery”, which opens the album’s second half with the kind of jagged, unrestrained noise guitars and broken rhythms of Deerhoof’s very early work. “Rrrrrrright” is the roughest song on the album, noisier than “Here Comes the Duck”, but it is also the album’s very last song. In effect The Runners Four slowly introduces listeners to Deerhoof’s modus operandi rather than presenting it all at once: once you’ve learned to accept singer Satomi Matsuzaki’s cartoon falsetto, then they give you the weird angles and exploding noises. Think you can handle it?

Deerhoof is easily the coolest band in the world, so I think you should reconsider, friend. The deal-breaker may still be Satomi’s Japanese singing style, as you said, “Its like some Asian six-year-old singing songs about bunnies and pandas and shit.” Not really anymore though. Like I said before, the melodies are more evocative and more considered and the lyrics are a lot less cutesy. Instead of cuddely and adorable, Satomi sounds more sad and fragile. So keep an open mind, alright? Runners Four is one of Deerhoof’s, and 2005’s, best albums and has the potential to drastically expand their well-deserved fan base. It should not only improve your musical life but also that nasty erectile dysfunction you’ve been complaining about, friend.