Experimental art is usually more deadly than effective. But there is always that rare gem that is wildly in touch with the underpinnings of aestheticism, like a secret passageway down untrod paths of new expression. This is a lofty designation to apply to any artist, but it’s what Animal Collective has achieved in their new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion.
Animal Collective, the New York City/Washington D.C./Lisbon based avant-garde musical group, is made up of Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), and Geologist (Brian Weitz). Since their breakout album Feels in 2005, Animal Collective has been on the cutting edge of the indie music scene. But their sound is a far cry from your standard rock band.
Though they’re sometimes categorized as “psych folk,” “noise rock,” and “avant-garde,” no label fully encompasses the band’s sound. Their tribal melodies tease more than they culminate. They never speak down to their audience. Their standard of complexity never stoops to the expected. They are experimentally courageous.
With Merriweather Post Pavilion they have hit the crest of their progressive wave. “In the Flowers,” the album’s first cut, begins with futuristic, industrial noise before the band’s standard dreamlike vocals cut through to dissonantly accompany a plunking minor chord on a piano. This droning intro lasts for nearly three minutes before it explodes into an alarm of melody that is at once joyful and distressing. The song grabs your attention with its obscure intricacies and is an appropriate introduction to the album’s unpredictability.
“My Girls” is the album’s most accessible song. It floats from Brian Wilson-esque harmonies to dance floor, pop-infused minimalism. The song evokes the image of tribal groups of hipsters, bobbing in motion as if to resurrect the rain dance or some other weather-invoking spiritual. Lead vocalist Avey Tare folds in lyrics of patriarchal desires over a sound setting unlikely for the topic at hand: “Is it much to admit I need a solid soul and the blood I bleed, with a little girl, and by my spouse I only want a proper house.” The song then breaks down into an almost hip-hop style rhythm and provides the album’s catchiest riff: “I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status. I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls.”
The entire album is filled with a sort of musical schizophrenia (an Animal Collective trademark), crossing genres quicker than one would expect and holding certain sounds longer than one can sometimes handle. Each song changes before you can describe it. “Also Frightened” yelps (is that coyotes or Apaches or just people from Williamsburg?), then morphs into robotic rhythms and cacophonous vocals, where “Guys Eyes” begins with strange jungle sounds (or was that a tuba?) before destructing into a testosterone-laden chant.
Then there’s “Summertime Clothes” that is a loud, distorted, electronic, happy song, which turns into tribal monotony. In contrast, the psychedelic lullaby “No More Runnin” and the ambient-sounding “Taste” make one wonder if the band has stumbled upon some sort of folk mythology from the future.
With all the attention deficit disorder of Merriweather…, the band has somehow avoided creating an album filled with anthems. As much as each song changes within itself, there is never a feeling of switching sounds for the sake of switching sounds – a trend far too popular in indie rock nowadays.
Minimalism is a key element to Animal Collective’s sound, using long-lasting tones to extract a certain emotion or perpetrate a musical purgation. This minimalism helps justify the group’s use of excessive melodies that are as effective as they are interesting; memorable as they are strange.
Most memorable might be the melodies interspersed through the album’s closing track “Brother Sport.” This Afro-electronic tribal celebration is the band’s most ambitiously constructed melody to date – ambitious, because it is incredibly pop-y. The song’s dueling vocals and sirens give the listener six full minutes of sugary escape. It is palpably repetitive in rhythm and sound before exploding into a cathartic coda of melody, exchanging sour for sweet with an excellent payoff.
“Avant-garde” has consistently described Animal Collective’s place in the indie scene, with their bizarrely resonant sounds that meld into corrosive melodies and tribal tones, but they haven’t been coined “accessible” – until now. Animal Collective hasn’t changed their sound, their techniques, or even their premise for creating music. Perhaps they have trained us into being wiser listeners. Perhaps a band that was before its time has finally been caught by the hands of the clock they were dragging behind them. Whatever it is, they have created a complex gem of an album, as influential as it is enjoyable.
