Optical illusion included.
I know I start half of my reviews this way, but here it is: I didn’t care much for Animal Collective prior to this release. Yes, I did enjoy Panda Bear’s solo outing, 2007′s Person Pitch; and no, I have not heard every single A.C. album (I tried their last two, Feels and Strawberry Jam; they left me bored and annoyed, respectively).
All in all, there was no indication I would be able to enjoy Merriweather Post Pavilion. That the album was already being hailed as a masterpiece weeks prior to its street date certainly didn’t help. But hell, I gave it a try, and while it would take me a few listens to get into several of the tracks, MPP did provide a good deal of instant pleasures: “My Girls” and “Summertime Clothes” are catchy from the get-go, smartly positioned early into the album.
The more I came back for those two songs, the more chances the rest of the album had to develop. Scaringly enough, the whole thing started to sound really damn good. “Bluish” developed into a groovy, almost dance-y number; “Brothersport” became a carnival in the basement. From beginning to end, MPP presents itself as a densely layered album that hits you when you least expect – whether it’s the strange sounds, the slowly revealing melodies or the down-to-earth lyrics, there is enough material here to keep the listener coming back for a long time (at least until the summer!).
If you have never heard them and are expecting this review to provide you an idea of what A.C. sounds like, then you’re in a fucking rut. Thankfully, it’s not just random noise (though you wonder what the hell they are using to make those sounds). I can’t call them electronic music (which they partly are), much less pop music (though it is certainly catchy at times). It’s definitely not classic rock, but you can hear 1960s-influenced melodies in many of the tracks. Calling it experimental is equally silly, particularly because these guys have had 7 or 8 albums’ worth of material to try things out – at this point in their career, A.C. doesn’t sound like they’re experimenting anything, but rather consolidating what they’ve been building all along.
Based on my experience (listening to their last few albums) and research (reading about the handful of older ones), MPP is definitely Animal Collective’s most accessible work. Conversely, that in itself doesn’t make it an easy listen: this is pop music from the future, except the future is now and this will never be all that widely popular either. This is a remarkably unique group – something that often worked against them, in my opinion – and MPP is arguably their definitive statement; it’s too early to tell if this belongs up there with Kid A and Is This It? among the most iconic records of this decade, but they sure tried their best to make a case.
FOR FANS OF: hell do I know.
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