My first encounter with Deerhoof's music was when I was painting my younger sister's walls in the summer of 2021. My father put on a song for me.
I stopped everything I was doing when I heard a simple riff explode into brilliant, rhythmic chaos, then snap to sugary, light vocals, and back again into a grungy, entropic discord. The mix of noise and calm, the haunting, suspenseful trumpet volta, the story shared behind the lyrics, all these beautifully synthesised into one song.
It's impossible to describe to anyone without strings of metaphor what this album feels and sounds like. In essence, Milk Man is a concept album.
Milk Man is never what you expect. Even after the tunes and lyrics have become familiar to you, it finds a way to creep up on you and twist your guts into knots. Milk Man is a cold, blunt knife.
Milk Man is filled with musical caesuras and awkward friction and sudden hoots and whistles and unresolved chords. The pacing of the album feels like you're being chased through the forest with a bloody, festering leg wound. Milk Man is a haunting, sing-songy ghost.
Milk Man is gentle and overbearing, playful and calm, bouncing up and never coming back down. Milk Man feels like saying "yay" and "oh woah" and "yippee" and "ouch". Milk Man is a crowd of overexcitable dogs.
Deerhoof tears sound and sanity apart and ties a pink bow around its residue. Milk Man is a culmination of pure creativity and talent. It is anything but a machine, despite its irregular, piston-like yelps. Milk Man is organic and natural and tense and flowery. Milk Man is silly and strange and bouncy and happy. Milk Man is my favourite album.