Occasionally a band’s moniker is a clean and precise description of its music like a Polaroid insight to the band’s cumulative sound – think Guns-N-Roses’ quick-fire guitar riffs and Led Zeppelin’s heavy yet ascending sound.
Animal Collective to the telling-tag camp. The band’s music sounds like an orchestra of insolent safari animals run amok in a futuristic music lab attempting to drown their furry brethren out with each successive wave of technical instrumentation.
Animal Collective’s latest release “Merriweather Post Pavilion preserves its clamorous charm in 11 new songs.
Their music sounds like aIf you like noise, this is a good thing. The album, which dropped Jan. 20, is loosely reminiscent of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds”- if the classic California quintet had recorded the album in the outback.
Sounds to expect on “Merriweather Post Pavillion” include rupturing violin strings; Transylvanian organs-on-speed; and lightsabers bubbles and robots. Also in the mix are birds wind chimes the reedy “Apocalypto” score retro Nintendo games and those rice-filled “rain-sticks” kids make in grade school. And I do believe it’s a didgeridoo blasting in the opening of “Lion in a Coma.”
The album is rife with uncannily Brian Wilson-esque elements particularly in “Also Frightened” and “Guys Eyes which sounds an awful lot like a scratched and modified God Only Knows” chorus. “Summertime Clothes” has New Order drums and a Connor Oberst vocal feel to it.
“Bluish” and “No More Runnin” are significantly less disconcerting than the more up-tempo tracks. They are as dreamy and ethereal as the album gets.
Rolling Stone has cornered the band into a “psychedelic-tribal new-folk outfit” identification. But the description is only moderately accurate. The “psychedelic” and “folky” terms summon visions of spiritual intuition choice recreational drugs and pleasurable out-of-body experiences. Instead Animal Collective’s repertoire has the tendency to garner a very in-body case of claustrophobia – like a thousand tiny metal ants prickling along every inch of your skin.
In this sense the album is a soundtrack for various adrenaline-driven activities such as fine artistry sugar-induced early a.m. dance parties and systematic gym activity. But one can only listen to Britney’s “Circus” or any of Kanye’s albums so many times.
Above all else “Merriweather Post Pavillion” is for those who utilize their eardrums and appreciate the splendor and imaginative power of experimental music.
If you enjoy 55 minutes of cacophonous surprise then blast “Merriweather” to high heaven. If you like ho-hum melodies and are prone to migraines think twice before buying the album.
