Miracle-Level is no less captivating when Deerhoof take their feet off the gas. The coruscating undulation of “The Poignant Melody” wouldn’t be out of place on a recent Jeff Parker album; it helps that the phrase “melody” is another close cognate, and it helps even more that the translation attributes to ’70s shlock rockers Journey the idea that a melody needs to mean something: “But what does it mean, this melody?” Any way you want it, Neal Schon. Tender finale “Wedding, March, Flower,” a keyboard-based ballad that tasks drummer Greg Saunier, this time, with singing a non-native language—his vocals are in Japanese too—is genuinely moving: “Let’s walk closely together/Let’s live/I can hold an umbrella for you for a long time,” the English translation of the lyrics concludes.
The idea of miracles recurs across Matsuzaki’s lyrics. The clapping, swaying title track proclaims that “we need only ‘love’ songs,” but this is no ordinary love: “I’m talking high-level!/I’m talking religion-level!/I’m talking miracle-level.” The mesmerizing, convulsive “And the Moon Laughs” begins with a light-hearted nod to “non-drinking teens [who] compete/Shaking butts at cell-phone,” but soon becomes a terse parable for an age of disenchantment: “Non-miracle said:/That’s not my problem. I give nothing./ Well, I am not your slave. Become ice-cream then!” With bass synth, cowbell, and circuitous twists and turns, “Phase-Out All Remaining Non-Miracles by 2028” calls for the magical-realist goal it states in its title, but ends on a fantastically optimistic note for humanity: When it comes to “non-miracles,” the translated lyrics read, “Luckily there aren’t that many.”
Miracle-Level celebrates the heady euphoria that can result when skill and craft meet with serendipity and happy accidents, like a long-running indie band teaming up with the former owner of Lil Bub and hustling out a full album in two weeks’ studio time. “The idea that an artist even knows what they’re doing … I think it’s a lie,” Saunier said in a recent podcast interview. “It’s an illusion that we tell ourselves for the purpose of making selling the record easier. We dumb it down to a blurb.” A melody doesn’t have to have a meaning, it just is. Or, as Saunier told another recent interviewer, “Generosity, creativity, and love are just as much human nature as competition, coercion, and brutality.” Do you believe in miracles? No? Become ice cream then.
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