LAUREN REEDY | guest writer
One look at the cover art for Merriweather Post Pavillion, Animal Collective’s newest album, gives a good impression of the complex and intricate sound found on this impressive CD. The psychedelic, optical illusion album artwork gives a visual representation of the band’s amorphous sound.
While the band’s undeniably unorthodox approach to musical expression can be somewhat off-putting to the unprepared listener, as an independent band with a growing underground following, their music is worth a listen.
Animal Collective’s eighth album to date combines tribal beats, ambiguous lyrics and penetrating melodies in a polished package that strives to appeal to a wider audience than previous. The band still pushes the boundaries as far as creating a sound that combines electropop, folksy strumming, shoegaze, and a little noisecore all in a 50-minute span, but their most recent album is a much more focused effort.
The album weaves all the band’s widely-varied influences into a style that is uniquely theirs. While the task of mixing genres in a single album may have easily become a confusing mess if attempted by any other band, Animal Collective does it with graceful ease.
Only a year and a half after the release of their successful 2007 album Strawberry Jam, the dynamic trio fulfills their promised potential. While Strawberry pursued a much more skeptical, disquieting mood with eerie melodies and haunting lyrics (the second to last song on the album, fittingly titled “Cuckoo, Cuckoo,” is about the feeling of insanity), Merriweather returns with a mature optimism. In the nature of a worldly older sibling, the band takes the uneasiness expressed in its previous album and spins it into a gleeful adventure.
This is not to say Merriweather avoids darker topics. The ominous tone looming in the background of the album certainly communicates a somber understanding of life’s inequities. In pure existential spirit, however, the band chooses to instead focus on the simple beauties in life; walking down the street with a friend on warm summer nights or firefly-lit evenings on the back porch.
The album ebbs with songs like track number six, “Bluish,” the band’s closest to a traditional love song. From there it moves on to songs like “Lion in a Coma,” which opens with the unique sounds of the Australian didgeridoo and takes a full three minutes and 20 seconds to reach the chorus.
Beginning with a tantalizing minute-long intro, Merriweather’s first single, “My Girls,” is the catchiest, most entertaining song of the album. Its straightforward, powerful melody couples perfectly with main singer Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear)’s cooing about a desire for the simple things in life. Heavily synthesized sound and neatly organized handclaps are sure to make this song an instant favorite with groupies and dabblers alike.
The album ends with one of the band’s most epic, feel-good jams to date – “Brother Sport”— a track with a peppy beat and laissez-fair lyrics that pulls the whole album together. The song, which is thought to have been written for Lennox’s younger brother, encourages the listener to, “open up your throat…and let all of that time go,” reiterating this sentiment in the closing lyric when Lennox says, “won’t help to hold inside…kept it real, shout out.”
If looking for an average, chorus-bridge-chorus, ephemeral MTV hit, look at the top of the Billboard charts. Want music that challenges, offers a unique sound and simple, poignant lyrics? Go check out Merriweather Post Pavillion.
