I've never been big on disclaimers in music reviews, but this one comes with one major, illuminating caveat: I've always hated Animal Collective.
For the uninitiated, Animal Collective is an avant-garde collective from the DC/Baltimore area that fuses West African tribal chanting, Beach Boys-esque harmonizing, psychedelic rock and droning minimalism, a combination sure to scare two-thirds of my readership away.
Still with me?
The band makes dense, pretentious and inflexible music. There's nothing pop about Animal Collective. There's little to hold onto in the band's music, and listening to its catalog has the disorienting sensation of drowning. It's just too much.
Good music is challenging, but great music finds a way to sneak in the back door. Animal Collective has always destroyed the front door with a cruise missile. Subtlety is important, even in avant-garde music, and that's always been a card the band has lacked.
But "Merriweather Post Pavilion," the band's ninth album, finds a way to retain the band's avant-garde and experimental tendencies while injecting its music with a much needed sense of melodic vibrancy. The huge, arching vocals on "Also Frightened," the delirious vocal hook that snakes through the chorus of "Summertime Clothes" and the insanely catchy Brazilian vocal chants on "Brother Sport" all prove the band has the ability to lean to the middle while veering sharply to the fringes of what is understood as pop music.
But the true standouts are "My Girls" and "Brother Sport." "Brother Sport," in particular, is astounding. I rarely experience music in any truly visceral way. Being a critic forces you to step back and listen from a bubble. "Brother Sport" quite simply gave me chills. It's easy to forget how amazing music can be in the hands of those who truly care about evoking that sort of response. When it happens, it can be devastating. When the cacophony of a tape-looped middle gives way to a breezy, skipping piano line and a full-band vocal chant, I dare you not to experience the same thing.
The band's newfound pop-bliss brings up the subject of Animal Collective's commercial viability. "Merriweather Post Pavilion" is probably too experimental for the vast majority of the public. But in an age when Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. can achieve mainstream success only through her most conventional song, these kinds of world influences have become an increasingly hot commodity.
Consider me a convert.
The quick hit
- Bears of Blue River, Caroline Smith, The Good Night Sleeps and Adam Kuhn are playing a free show at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Village Green Records on Martin Street. Bring your iPod for free Bears of Blue River songs.
- U2's new single "Get On Your Boots" is available for streaming at www.goyb.u2.com/. The verdict? It's good, and this will either be another latter-day U2 album with one good single, or a return to form. Time will tell.
Jan. 20
- Antony and the Johnsons - "The Crying Light"
- Bon Iver - "Blood Bank EP"
- Andrew Bird - "Noble Beast"
- Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - "Working on a Dream"
- Franz Ferdinand - "Franz Ferdinand: Tonight"
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