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The most helpful favourable review
The most helpful critical review
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Set the controls to the heart of the fun! "Pet Sounds" reborn for the noughties
I've read a lot of the reviews on Amazon of Merriweather Post Pavilion and clearly it is polarising opinion which in one sense is the sign of a great album. While I understand the "don't get it" mentality some of the destructive negativity that goes with it is probably undeserved. Although there are some albums (mostly by Razorlight) which I would happily turn a...
Published 6 months ago by Red on Black
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44 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
From not liking at all to adoring; it only took five months
I've liked the idea of Animal Collective since I first heard of them many years ago. I've been trying to like the reality since Sung Tongs, the first album of theirs that I heard. I've listened to every record since, including Panda Bear's second solo album, the much-acclaimed Person Pitch. But I don't like them. In fact, I pretty much hate their music...
Published 8 months ago by Sick Mouthy
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Set the controls to the heart of the fun! "Pet Sounds" reborn for the noughties, 3 May 2009
I've read a lot of the reviews on Amazon of Merriweather Post Pavilion and clearly it is polarising opinion which in one sense is the sign of a great album. While I understand the "don't get it" mentality some of the destructive negativity that goes with it is probably undeserved. Although there are some albums (mostly by Razorlight) which I would happily turn a flamethrower full on or attack with a sledgehammer so I do understand the sentiment.
A theory - it seems to me that the roots all modern rock music can be traced back in some form to 3 key sources the Velvet Underground's debut album, Pet Sounds & Smile by the Beach Boys and the wider work of the Beatles. Ok it's a vast over generalisation but stick with me. Animal Collective stand in the line of experimentation started by Brian Wilson that has clearly developed over time with a multitude of influences such as Mercury Rev, Grandaddy, Flaming Lips and Beck. Some including Alan McGee have even cited Hall and Oates. As a comparision "I can't go for that" (sorry) yet when MPP works it is joyful, transcending and breathtaking and I sort of know what he means.
Surely the point is that Animal Collective are a bunch of magpies who are "stealing with pride" and who in addition bring their own high level of originality and dreamy pop to create a new fusion that takes music into new realms. If you don't get it fair enough; but to these ears "My Girls" "Summertime Clothes" and "Lion in a coma" are classic pop songs which are infectious and innovative. "No more runnin" is wonderfully ambient and laidback as "Bluish" is exhilarating.
"My Girls" has already been re-mixed by a huge range of artists (the HATCHMATIX disco mix is especially good so to the Pitch Lab edit) and is vying for the song of the year. It will certainly be the soundtrack to the summer (certain songs seem destined to perform this feat like Supergrass "Alright" a few years back). What is equally healthy is that Animal Collective set a benchmark to which others will try to emulate and rise above. There is already friendly competition with the superb Grizzly Bear and hopefully all those British bands who are all starting to sound like the Editors might want to try a bit harder. Thank god for the Super Furry Animals in this respect who have also taken their freaky enthusiasms in constantly new directions. All in all Animal Collective on MPP are pushing hard at cutting edge of musical experimentation and offering something new (with caveats) and genuinely exciting. Their previous album Strawberry Jam especially the song Fireworks and Panda Bears "Person Pitch" are all massively entertaining.
I fully agree that in some critics eyes they are gathering so much attention it is disastrously unhip not to like or name check them. The album already seems to have already won the 2009 end of year poll only a few months in. Dirty Projectors "Bitte Orca" Phoenix's "Wolfgang Amaedeus" and Grizzly Bear's "Veckatimest" will provide stiff competition on this front. For those of you who dont get it deepest apologies but don't be down about it, just move on. The key test of MPP is very simple. Drive out on a beautiful day, wind the down windows, put your sunglasses on, place MPP in the car CD and play "Brother Sport" very loud and try not to smile. Go on give it another listen.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
My twopenneth, 28 Jan 2009
Animal Collective are a band who can go into your kitchen and, armed with a collection of glass bowls, saucepans and the contents of your cutlery draw, could produce a masterpiece... or conversely sound like a bunch of kids mucking about in the kitchen. This is because they completely understand the basic beauty and evocative nature of sound, but sometimes get lost between the original idea and the final product.
I can put up with the near misses if they continue to come up with those astonishing moments when, out of a seemingly chaotic mess, everything resolves with a single note or chord change.
This obviously puts a lot of people off, and tries their patience. 12 minutes of "Visiting friends" is not for everyone, but I completely understand and love that track. All 12 minutes of it.
However with the first few tracks of Strawberry Jam I thought they were getting stale and were repeating themselves. I thought Panda Bear had outgrown them with Person Pitch and the end was nigh. But then with "For Reverand Green" and "Fireworks" all was right with the world.
MPP picks up from those tracks, weaves in the splendid ideas from Person Pitch and on we go. MPP isn't a perfect album. "Also Frightened" is dreary and is best skipped and "Lion in a coma" (a play on words) doesn't quite work for me. But the majority of it is so sumptuous, warm, and life affirming that it would be bonkers to give it less than 5 stars.
If you're new to Animal Collective then this is the album to start with. "Daily Routine" gives you an idea of their earlier work. The way the extended voice is harmonised with those shining bell sounds towards the end of the track is classic AC and may invite you to buy "Feels" and "Sung Tongs".
If you're already a fan you've already got this.
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44 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
From not liking at all to adoring; it only took five months, 27 Mar 2009
I've liked the idea of Animal Collective since I first heard of them many years ago. I've been trying to like the reality since Sung Tongs, the first album of theirs that I heard. I've listened to every record since, including Panda Bear's second solo album, the much-acclaimed Person Pitch. But I don't like them. In fact, I pretty much hate their music.
Some context. I wrote about music for a few websites and some magazines for several years; I gave rave reviews to people like Caribou (when he was still Manitoba), Bark Psychosis, Fennesz, The Necks, Acoustic Ladyland, and Patrick Wolf. I've got a big record collection. I like a lot of 60s psych music, Tropicalia, 70s fusion jazz, My Bloody Valentine, Orbital, Aphex Twin, Talk Talk, Can, Long Fin Killie, Battles, blah blah blah etc. I'm not at all adverse to "experimental" music; I earned money writing about it! I also like pop music, Beatles, Bacharach, great melodies, timeless songs, gorgeous harmonies etc etc.
So why don't I like Animal Collective, seemingly one of the most consistently acclaimed alternative bands of the 2000s, who are meant to be both mind-wideningly experimental and exultantly pop? The thing is that I don't really know. I can't touch their music. I can't recall any of it. It gives me a headache, makes me lose concentration. I can't focus on their records like I can on, say, a Super Furry Animals record, or a Califone record, or a Kitchens Of Distinction record, or whatever.
I was actually REALLY looking forward to MPP because early talk about it from people I know seemed to say they'd made a much more danceable record than they had previously; Screamadelica was mentioned as a comparison point, which would make me feel a little sick if it was Keane we were talking about, but with Animal Collective it actually made me hopeful; maybe finally it would click for me?
Well I've spent many hours over the last three months or so with MPP, and it hasn't clicked. I still don't get it. I get no emotion from this record, no excitement, no visceral or sensual or intellectual thrill. It's like a giant, beautiful butterfly, flapping its wings right in my face; occasionally I get a sense of something wonderful and strange, but it's too close to focus on, too distracting to get involved with, and so I am left annoyed. It's all distracted, shrill treble, messily mixed and indistinct. None of the sounds on this record seem real to me, seem like actual sound, actual music, however abstract; it's not even "noise" - I like "noise"! It's something else.
I don't understand. So many people whose opinion I respect like this band, this record. People express surprise when I say I can't stand them. I like Grizzly Bear and Koushik, so why not this? I keep trying. I will keep trying. Maybe one day it'll click. Nothing annoys me more than not getting joy out of music that other people say they get joy from. But I get nothing from this other than a headache.
EDIT: I've been listening to this a lot lately, in one last attempt to "get it", and I think I finally have - the moment of truth came when I played it on my proper big hi-fi, which has been blocked by an old sofa I've been waiting to get rid of, and I was actually properly swept away for a good while; bits of it are now lodged pretty solidly in my head (passages of My Girl, Summertime Clothes, Also Frightened, Brother Sport, No More Running). This has, improbably, after months of disillusion, grown on me. If I still feel the same in a week, I'll bump this up from 2 to 4 stars. But not 5. Because Lion In A Coma is still horrible.
ANOTHER EDIT: Tail-between-legs time; I've had a complete about-face with this record, and I now adore it. After playing it on the big hi-fi and having it totally open up to me, MPP has become the joyous psychedelic melody explosion that everyone told me it was. My Girls is so sweet, so humble, and so catchy; Summertime Clothes is so hooky, so stereophonically groovy; No More Running is so elegiac and beautiful; Bluish is so distractedly horny. And the rest of the songs are pretty great, too; even Lion In A Coma has grown on me (must be the Jews Harp). This actually is a properly amazing record now it's hit me. I'm just faintly irritated that it took so long!
Consider the 2 stars above to have 3 more after them now. Seriously.
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19 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
Very Very Merriweather, 10 Dec 2008
I heard this the other day (it was a journo promo - not a leak!)I can see why all the reviews are going nuts. It has the trademark experimentation but with added melodic flourishes and sky high choruses. Still very Animal Collective but letting more folks into their strange and beautiful world.
It has a bit of a Beach Boys harmonic happiness (if you're into Fleet Foxes this is like an electronic version from Brooklyn) Really poppy in places but not at all predictable. It's definitely a record to get you through the New Year blues, it's pure sunshine haze. A really wild and happy record
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12 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
Pretty Strange Pretty Music For Fish, 1 Feb 2009
Animal Collective's Wikipedia entry made me smile.
"Genres : Experimental; Noise Pop; Freak Folk;
Indie Rock; Neo-Psychedelia".
Crikey ! The Wolf was going to have to check this one out for sure.
Being an AC virgin their admirers will, of course,
be way ahead of me in appreciating the finer points
of this cracking little ensemble's handiwork.
First things first. It's pretty music.
Pretty strange too given that very little else has ever
emerged from the bowels of Baltimore that might be deemed
beautiful ( Mr Waters' marvelous films notwithstanding ).
The eleven tracks in this collection plough a fairly uniform
furrow but the bid to retain our attention is largely sustained.
The sound is dense, crystalline, homogenous.
The melodic, harmonic and rhythmic structure of the songs is
complex but approachable.
There are some real delights to be found here.
The gentle pulse of 'Bluish' embraces an engagingly warm
composition evocative of West Coast 60's tripedelia.
Rolf Harris's contribution to 'Lion In A Coma' did not go
unnoticed. It enhances one of the album's most jaunty and
uplifting numbers.
Closing track 'Brother Sport' is saturated with Caribbean sunlight.
The whole experience made me think of what fish at the bottom
of a pond might hear if this music were played at a picnic
parked up beside the water's edge.
The fish are dancing !
Delightful.
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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
The best band in the world just got better , 9 Jan 2009
Animal Collective are back with a vengeance. Merriweather is a delicious collection of tunes. The opener, In the Flowers is as dreamy as Visiting Friends (Sung Tongs) with the driving sense of emotion and purpose AC bring to every tune. The chords in this song are as beautiful as those put together in any Radiohead song, but the melodies and lyrics do not preach in the way that the latter can.
My Girls is probably the most pop-tune they've ever done, and in a more intelligent age would be on Radio 1 once every five songs. Also Frightened is familiar Animal Collective grower, Summertime Clothes is another classy poppy number. Daily Routine is a great track, which appears to be very similar to another track they did, I can't find it though.
The other standout tracks for me are Lion in a Coma and Brothersport. However, I have no idea which I will like most in three day's, three week's or three year's time. That's the great thing about great albums and great bands.
I once thought Animal Collective are best described as the Beach Boys of the new Millennium. But now I would say this doesn't quite do them justice, perhaps you could say they are the Beach Boys + Velvet Underground of the... Anyway, enough of comparison. This is a completely free collection of music with colourful expression flowing from every note, for which genre labels and comparisons have no meaning.
Sung Tongs and Feels have steadily become my favourite albums of the decade. Strawberry Jam had more of a strained feel to it and didn't quite live up to the previous works. For me, Merriweather re-establishes Animal Collective as the best band in the world this decade.
Keep them out of the mainstream please! There will be enough idiots claiming they knew what it was all about when the Collective are up there in the greatest album charts in 20 years time. The recognition will come. Let's just enjoy a truly great band while we are lucky to coexist with them.
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9 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Amazing album..., 10 Dec 2008
Could animal collective's latest album finally be the one to break them through to the mainstream? a totally joyous and euphoric extension of all that has made them such a lauded underground act over the past decade or so. the music here contains much of the sprit and blissful harmony of panda bear's classic 'person pitch' but is still distinctly animal collective in execution. a cosmic dance music of songs that stay swirling round your head for days. 'my girls' is an obvious highlight with an amazing pulse and groove underpinning shimmering keys and trancelike (in a good way) vocals. a record to cherish and champion and destined to be one of the highlights of 2009.
Truly exciting, original and innovative music!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
If I could just leave my body, 17 Aug 2009
Forget that your blood pressure might be too high!
Or low!
Forget your diet!
Your teeth!! They're fine.
Your depression will lift!! Your hair has never looked better!
Listen to Animal Collective's new album.
.
I've tried, and I cannot think of an album that sounds so new. So fresh! So future - and I don't mean the kind of pseudo-futuristic techno computer-glitch, this sounds like MUSIC that is rapidly evolving.
It's colourful and playful at times, ambient and moody at others. Some songs thump along in a psych-out rave. The electronic buzz ringing, the climatic synths, the blasting drums!!...then other songs become drenched in neo-psych hazes, slowly unravelling; basked in beautiful melody and harmonies.
And that's the key really. "Merriweather Post Pavillion" is Animal Collective's most outright beautiful record. All those uplifting moments of pure joy from the old albums are fully realised and explored. It's a triumph. It's Animal Collective's best, and the best this year so far.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Sonic experimentalism - but with tunes, 15 May 2009
Very good album. A tiny bit self-indulgent at times and some tracks outstay their welcome, but overall really good. The vocals are WAY down in the mix though which is a shame because there are some great Beach Boys style harmonies and some perfect twisted pop tunes.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Beach Boys of Dance, 18 April 2009
I'm a new commer to Animal Collective having heard "My Girls" I thought their experimental style was unique, the album has some really great songs in it and I can't say I don't like one song! Some songs on the album just make you wanna get up and Dance Dance Dance(3 for emphasis). Having now heard their previous work, the experimental style is still there but this time it's some eclectic electronic rhythms! love it recommend it to the new listeners and old...
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