Without the layers of production heard on Milk Man and Green Cosmos, you start to understand the mania that follows their live shows: Deerhoof is a shockingly good rock band. They play with a primal abandon and molten group chemistry that remains untamed since the band's early days.

Still, at nearly twice the length of any of their previous albums, The Runners Four is more complex and challenging than anything they've ever recorded. After a few listens it dawns on you: This is more than rock, this is a wholesale rewrite of the rock and roll dictionary, a massive, sweeping totality, the product of a seemingly endless collective imagination.

The Runners Four: a quartet of racers, chasers, messengers, even smugglers, gleefully smashing through outmoded boundaries, bearing gifts of sonic contraband.

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