> Switch to Advanced Search

New & Current Releases
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
All-Time High (And Low) Scores
Best Of 2008
Best Of 2007
Best Of 2006
Best Of 2005
Best Of 2004
Best Of 2003
Best Of 2002
Best Of 2001
Best Of 2000
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Music In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

64 A Camp
78 Akron/Family
73 Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women
74 Amazing Baby
62 Tori Amos
54 The Answer
74 Anti-Flag
74 Art Brut
71 Au Revoir Simone
65 Zee Avi
70 Bachelorette
77 Bat For Lashes
68 Big Business
76 Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses
67 Black Dice
57 Black Eyed Peas
74 Black Moth Super Rainbow
71 Blank Dogs
65 Booker T.
54 The Boxmasters
65 The Boy Least Likely To
74 Brakes [aka brakesbrakesbrakes]
68 British Sea Power
66 Jeff Buckley
75 Busdriver
59 Busta Rhymes
64 Cage The Elephant
82 Bill Callahan
80 Camera Obscura
68 Cam'ron
79 Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
58 Chester French
82 The Church
61 Ciara
72 Clues
69 The Coathangers
74 Jarvis Cocker
90 Leonard Cohen
70 Elvis Costello
66 Graham Coxon
76 Crippled Black Phoenix
71 The Crocodiles
69 Cryptacize
71 Crystal Antlers
56 The Crystal Method
69 Dananananaykroyd
76 Danger Mouse And Sparklehorse
71 De La Soul
77 Death Cab For Cutie
68 Deer Tick
81 Deerhunter
70 Depeche Mode
78 Dinosaur Jr.
85 Dirty Projectors
86 DJ Quik & Kurupt
77 Doves
68 Dredg
76 Bob Dylan
82 Steve Earle
70 Eels
62 El Grupo Nuevo de Omar Rodriguez Lopez
58 Eminem
60 Empire Of The Sun
54 The Enemy
67 Jeremy Enigk
68 Nathan Fake
85 The Felice Brothers
79 The Field
65 Fink
60 Fischerspooner
77 Flatlanders
62 Flo Rida
64 Franz Ferdinand
77 Gallows
72 Melody Gardot
59 Ginuwine
71 Golden Silvers
61 Gomez
69 Grand Duchy
73 Great Lake Swimmers
59 Great Northern
72 Green Day
86 Grizzly Bear
75 The Handsome Family
69 Ben Harper And Relentless7
75 PJ Harvey & John Parish
66 Heaven & Hell
85 Levon Helm
74 The Hold Steady
79 Patterson Hood
75 Jon Hopkins
82 The Horrors
69 Hanne Hukkelberg
74 Ida Maria
65 Immaculate Machine
75 The Intelligence
76 Iron & Wine
79 Isis
68 It Hugs Back
88 J Dilla aka Jay Dee
61 Jadakiss
86 Japandroids
61 Joan Of Arc
84 Joe Lovano Us Five
72 John Doe & The Sadies
70 Joker's Daughter
62 Jonas Brothers
53 Mike Jones
71 The Juan Maclean
76 Junior Boys
68 Kasabian
74 Diana Krall
56 Lady Sovereign
43 Ben Lee
68 The Lemonheads
76 Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard
77 Lindstrom & Prins Thomas
65 Little Boots
79 The Low Anthem
67 Jason Lytle
75 The Maccabees
76 Magik Markers
80 Major Lazer
70 Malajube
71 Manchester Orchestra
85 Manic Street Preachers
57 Marilyn Manson
66 The Mars Volta
68 Dave Matthews Band
62 Maximo Park
70 Meat Puppets
80 Method Man & Redman
77 Metric
75 Micachu & The Shapes
69 Chrisette Michele
76 Miike Snow
67 Mika Miko
75 Rhett Miller
49 Mims
72 Mr. Lif
72 Moby
78 Moderat
70 Mandy Moore
80 Mos Def
70 Bob Mould
74 Nadja
72 New York Dolls
72 Nite Jewel
67 NOFX
76 Noisettes
60 Paolo Nutini
67 Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band
74 Papercuts
76 Passion Pit
74 Peaches
71 Pet Shop Boys
68 Peter Bjorn And John
82 Phoenix
76 Pink Mountaintops
63 Placebo
66 Pomegranates
64 Iggy Pop
67 Prefuse 73
81 Ramblin' Jack Elliott
76 Rancid
54 Rascal Flatts
68 Lionel Richie
77 Alasdair Roberts
73 Rick Ross
55 Asher Roth
72 Savath & Savalas
61 Polly Scattergood
65 The Shortwave Set
60 Shout Out Out Out Out
66 Silversun Pickups
85 Todd Snider
78 Sonic Youth
72 The Soundcarriers
61 The Sounds
74 Regina Spektor
63 Spinal Tap
65 Spinnerette
81 St. Vincent
59 Still Flyin'
58 Street Sweeper Social Club
87 Sunn O)))
82 Sunset Rubdown
84 Super Furry Animals
74 Richard Swift
78 Taking Back Sunday
85 Tanya Morgan
81 Otis Taylor
71 Telekinesis
70 Telepathe
80 Thee Oh Sees
79 The Thermals
74 Rob Thomas
64 Thunderheist
74 Tiga
57 Tinted Windows
72 Tortoise
82 Allen Toussaint
71 Trembling Bells
69 Two Fingers
84 UGK
68 Keith Urban
71 John Vanderslice
85 The Vaselines
74 The Veils
73 Viva Voce
63 Patrick Watson
79 White Denim
77 White Rabbits
57 The Whitest Boy Alive
74 Wilco
80 Wildbirds & Peacedrums
78 Wolves In The Throne Room
65 The Wooden Birds
67 Wooden Shjips
81 Yeah Yeah Yeahs
70 Pete Yorn
93 Neil Young
60 Neil Young
72 Yusuf

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Milk Man
by Deerhoof


9.0

based on 17 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album

Official Artist Site

The San Francisco noise-rockers' latest is a concept album about the Pied Piper-esque title character, who is based on the drawings of illustrator Ken Kagami.

LABEL:	Kill Rock Stars
RELEASE DATE:	09 March 2004
DISCS:	1 disc
GENRE(S):	Indie, Rock, Experimental

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Spin

A perfect album, except perfect is the wrong word for a band so dedicated to kitchen-sink oddness. [Mar 2004, p.96]

The Onion (A.V. Club)

Deerhoof sounds like a group of music-school whizzes playing at being a homey rock band, dividing the distance between their Steely Dan and Shonen Knife records. [31 Mar 2004]

Delusions of Adequacy

Milk Man is representative of just about everything the band does best: the melodies soar, bend, and crunch; the verse seems interminably driven by its own internal logic; and the band’s members still play with a near-telepathic singularity of thought.

Logo

So horribly untrendy it’s a new-black must-have, ‘Milk Man’ is the essential oddity of 2004, and a more-than-worthy successor to 2003’s magnificent ‘Apple O’’.

All Music Guide

Even in its louder moments, Milk Man is a surprisingly subtle album, and one that takes Deerhoof's music in quietly exciting new directions.

Splendid

If you've heard the group's last few albums, Milk Man won't seem like a notable refinement or a grand statement of purpose; they're just breaking the pop song mold, over and over again, and doing consistently inventive things with the fragments.

Dusted Magazine

Deerhoof have moved away from abstract rock noise and toward more familiar structure, without losing the spontaneity of their genre-clashing sound.

Tiny Mix Tapes

The album is most similar to Apple O', but while Apple O' seemed to have a somewhat lethargic quality, Milk Man sounds fresh and fully inviting. And it's a lot better.

Pitchfork

They've focused their maniacal energy into seriously dense and carefully considered songwriting; even the cleaner and deeper production betrays Deerhoof's commitment to letting the songs speak for themselves, and to keeping individual parts as precise and undistracting as possible.

Junkmedia

Deerhoof's diversity is less a series of self-conscious genre references than a genuine proclamation of unimaginable artistic freedom.

Uncut

Deerhoof's skittish collages always, miraculously, have a pop logic to them, and their desire to show that experimental music can be playful rather than forbidding is often heroic. [Jul 2004, p.102]

Neumu.net

For the first time, Milk Man finds such a sound seeming not like the product of a collective caprice, but a formula that they're following, with the few songs where they get lost in total tonal abstraction seeming like didactic decisions to ditch the rock instruments and remind everyone they were once filed under difficult listening.

Stylus Magazine

Many tracks hint at the notion that Deerhoof decided to make an entirely different album this time around, but counterbalancing these advancements are decidedly flat resurrections of past glories.

Mojo

Slaloms round sing-song pop, day-glo punk and Zappa-style tune transformations. [Jun 2004, p.106]

PopMatters

Sounds like Deerhoof-in-theory: zero standout tracks, an abundance of groovy sonics.

Entertainment Weekly

Seems Deerhoof have mistaken self-indulgence for experimentation. [12 Mar 2004, p.114]

Alternative Press

A barrage of unfocused fragments that prove this album should have been condensed into a seven-song EP. [May 2004, p.96]

The average user rating for this album is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Benjamin Bunny gave it an 8:
Wow! I think some critics are expecting too much from Deerhoof. Listen, "Milk Man" is not as consistently genius as either "Reveille" or "Apple O," but when this LP is on it's turned up to 10! The title track gets my vote for song of the year. Buy it!!

Don W gave it an 8:
I love Deerhoof - they're a fantastic live band - but this isn't their best album. There ARE standout tracks, but there are also some duds here. If you haven't heard Deerhoof, the best place to start would be Reveille, followed by Apple O' and possibly their first album. Still, even a subpar Deerhoof album is far more interesting and more fun than most of what's out there.

Mefisto gave it a 9:
disappointing to see reviewers not appreciating this one as much as the last couple... because this record is as good as Reveille and better than Apple O... not to mention their most consistent release of the three (quality-wise)... their perverted melodic sensibilities make for a refreshingly interesting, exhilarating listen... easily among the best rock bands that this era has to offer... hopefully they will be remembered as such...

Ed gave it a 10:
Deerhoof are the most exciting thing happening in music today. Dare I say - but I will say - genius. They've been on a roll for at least the past three albums, not including this brilliant opus. I want to be part of their world. AND when was the last time music blew your mind? Wow. Thank you Deerhoof. A million times...thank you.

Discuss this album in our forums

Return to top of page

Milk Man by Deerhoof

Milk Man
by Deerhoof