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MUSIC REVIEW: ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - 'MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION'

Playful While Intelligent; Artistic Without Taking Itself Too Seriously

By: Ashley Schaeffer
February 2, 2009

 

Animal Collective (Getty Images)(FatCat Records) Truly experimental, avant-garde music is frequently heavily laden with emotional catharses, existential questing, or convoluted obscurity. Conversely, whenever music is genuinely fun to listen to, my initial instinct is to expect poppy, radio-friendly material. The beautiful thing about Animal Collective and their new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, is that they provide the goods of more than one genre, without the (sometimes) unfortunate side effects of each. They go against conventional expectations, challenge stereotypes, and chuck customary song structure right out the window. What’s left is a work of genius composition and infectious energy.

 

Although most of the tracks on the album start out relatively slow and simple, they rapidly evolve to flesh out an entire experience, sweeping you up and taking you for a ride before you even know what hit you. “Summertime Clothes” begins with oscillating mechanical noise that syncs up with a pounding beat, and then folds in some warbled, distorted vocals along the way. When the song unexpectedly transitions to a chorus, it catches you up in this magnetically charged energy and carries you stumbling through the streets in blissful aimlessness on a hot summer night. This song contains some of the best descriptive lyrics I’ve heard in a long time. It’s easy to experience the oppressive heat while Avey Tare sings about how his “forehead is leaking” and how his “AC squeaks,” which eventually culminates into ripping off sleeves and ditching socks in sweetly reckless abandon.

 

Creativity flourishes throughout the album with songs like “My Girls,” “Brother Sport,” and “Bluish” by creating a complex and lively fusion of sound and genre. “My Girls” juxtaposes a lot of contradictory elements but combines them in an artful way that makes the end result harmonious. Galactic synthesized sounds lay down the background for this track, which is accompanied by what initially sounds like tribal chanting (but transforms into something not unlike Gregorian chants). Both the musicality and the lyrics seem to be caught in a modern world but yearn for the simplicity of the past with “four walls and adobe slabs for my girls” and without the complications of “fancy things.”

 

It seems that Animal Collective has discovered a mellifluous harmonic somewhere on the plane in which the organic and the synthetic intersect. “Daily Routine” features auto-tuned vocals, a preponderance of electronic noise, and lyrical lines that don’t quite match with the musical measures. Somehow, it still manages to reach a point where it almost sounds divine in a natural, earthy way.

 

Merriweather Post Pavilion is playful while remaining intelligent. It’s artistic without taking itself too seriously. It’s packed full of the experience of living without getting bogged down in over-analysis. There’s something for everyone here, and it’s likely a treasure trove for many, and therefore well worth checking out.