Deerhunter, turn it up faggot

Playing the paranoid superego to the Black Lips’ unbridled id, Atlanta’s Deerhunter combine the bouncy, bass-driven disco-punk of the Liars’ first record with the creepy weirdness of the Residents or, um, the Liars’ second record, throwing in for good measure some Mission of Burma-style tape manipulation, Merzbow-influenced noise, and singing processed almost to the point of oblivion. There are some guitars in there somewhere, too. The result, depending on one’s point of view, is either grating and pretentious or boldly confrontational. I choose the latter. If Deerhunter weren’t so uncompromisingly forward-looking, I might say they were a little derivative, but for a very young band, that’s not necessarily a fault, and besides, how often can one compare a band to the Residents?