Posts Tagged ‘animal collective’

Merriweather Post Pavilion album cover

So I have just returned from the delightful Monorail where the new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, was being played ahead of its release on 12th Jan. I am a late passenger on the Animal Collective train as I only really started to listen to them this year after much prompting from Richard. And lo it was Richard again who convinced me to go tonight. He really loves his Animal Collective! But anyway, you’re not here to read about Richard (or are you?).

The new album is quite a departure from Strawberry Jam (of which I am most familiar with) but Richard asures me that this is par for the course with AC; they are consistently inconsistent. Opening track In The Flowers lets you know this straight away as it’s a completely different kettle of fish from Peacebone, which opened their previous album. While their rampant usage of weird-and-wonderful-sounds-which-somehow-meld-together is still here, there’s a more natural feel to these sounds; as if Mother Earth had given the band a collection of samples from her mixing decks. But it’s the vocals that really differentiate Merriweather from their past work. Put simply, they’re sublime. Put slightly more complicatedly, it’s as if they are channeling The Beatles to produce some lush, multi-layered harmonies that tingle the ears.

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Monorail Music

Summertime Clothes contains probably the best examples of this new vocal work but since I don’t have that on mp3 you shall have to make do with My Girls. And by “make do”, I mean “enjoy lots”. Another notable track would be the album closer, Brothersport. A bit dancier than the rest of the album, you could tell that every person in the room was itching to cast their chairs to the side and strut their funky stuff.

Or that could have been just me.

All in all, it seems to me that Animal Collective has a winner on their hands. The album has a nice flow and I’m rather looking forward to it. It is probably worth noting that if you don’t like their other output then I don’t think this will change your mind.

As you can probably tell, I’m not a music journalist so please excuse my rather crappy descriptions and, as I have only heard the album once, I make no claims of this being accurate. It is just based on my admittedly flawed memory.