And we're busily reviewing CDs today.

OK, not "we" and really only one album: The Runners Four by Deerhoof. Hailing from San Francisco, Deerhoof fits into my usual prejudices when it comes to "arty" pop music (in this usage, "pop" really means "not classical"). And what I like is an act that's willing to understand that they aren't a classical group, so they shouldn't look to match that genre's polish, precision, or elegance. What I'm looking for if you're going to go around breaking the rules of pop music is something unruly, maybe a little chaos or noise, but mostly, I'm put off by the faintest whiff of the intellectualism of classical music. It usually leads to the melding of the worst of both worlds: the stuffy, airlessness of classical, yet with a total lack of understanding regarding subtlety or structure.

Deerhoof is a quartet that more-or-less fits into the mold we've seen in rock and roll since before the Beatles: two guitars, drums, and bass (with some keyboards here and there, the musicians sometimes swap roles). The most prominent feature of the band's sound is singer Satomi Matsuzaki, who uses a childlike, no-vibrato delivery to ornament a fairly rambunctious act with simple melodies that seem more like nursery songs--if it weren't for the clunking, grinding guitars and drums. She often sounds like a small girl making up private songs on the spot ("come, come see the duck!" she repeatedly chirps in one track), straining her high-pitched voice in a naïve, un-schooled way. The rhythm tandem eschews the usual rock music four-beat patterns (boom-chuck-boom-chuck) in many songs, cranking out steady or broken rhythms with little apparent precision that mask some pretty subtle manipulations of time. The harmonies are odd: not noisy, not consonant, giving little sense of progression despite the simplified melodies.

I think the biggest concern with an act like this is that they work within a limited emotional range, courtesy a singer who shows little sign of wider talent (she's not going to wail like a banshee). They make up for it with smarts and fun, but you might begin to crave some contrast and catharsis in larger doses than available here.

9 out of 10

CDs listened to today:

• Charles Ives: Symphony No. 3 (Michael Tilson-Thomas conducting)
• The Orb: Orblivion
• Metric: Live It Out
• Nicholas Maw: Concerto For Violin And Orchestra
• The Refreshments: Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy