The Runners Four (2005)

Undersung darlings of the San Francisco art-rock scene since 1994, Deerhoof have settled well into their quirks: Singer Satomi Matsuzaki's baby rasp comes together with the band's jerky rhythms like some gravity-free amalgam of Sonic Youth, Stereo Total, and a Powerpuffmarathon. The Runners Four, the band's eighth album, is extra ambitious: the sprawling, swooping Runners soldiers on, seemingly inexhaustibly, through 20 fuzz-tinged tracks. In the end, however, the band's stamina outlasts our own.