Album of the Week: Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion

How often do you really listen to an album and your opinion ends up completely changing on it?? Normally my take away of an album is generally in line with my first impression, if a bit stronger. If I don't like it on the first spin I usually end up hating it. If I like it, I usually end up loving it. But I can't think of the last time my feeling about an album made a complete turn-around. It's all the more strange because I'm a huge Animal Collective fan and since I trust their taste and ability, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that I would love Merriweather Post Pavilion. The idea of them releasing a sub par or even outright bad album is as likely as Radiohead releasing one at this point. Yet on New Year's Eve, as I was driving to Cleveland to spend the night and a few days at a friend's house, I listened to Merriweather for the first time and hated it.

Perhaps hated is too strong, but I was certainly confused by what I heard. My initial impression was utter disappointment. It seemed like the band were going against their strengths, trying to make an electronic album, stuffed with overwhelming bass and confusing walls of synthesizer, drum machines, and spaced out vocals. In retrospect a lot of this might have been due to my car's stereo system, which tends to emphasize the bottom end of music way more than necessary and leave the mid and upper range muddled. Whatever the case, it wasn't until I had listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion on my laptop with iTunes's visualizer and a few more times in my car that I got it: this album is indeed Animal Collective's electronic album, but it's also a ballsy, psychedelic, and incredibly beautiful headphone album.

I've seen a few reviews that cite this as Animal Collective's pop album, but that's not entirely true. The biggest change from albums past is that the screams and noisy elements are entirely gone. The music is every bit as experimental and weird as before, but the band are emphasizing their gift for intricate vocals, unexpected sounds, strangely addictive melodies, and that indescribable ability their music has to be both repetitive and continually changing, always engaging the listener with new ideas as well as tweaks of familiar sounds. It might sound like lazy critic shorthand to say that there's bits and pieces of almost all of their albums on this one, but it's true. If pressed to give a succinct short description, I'd say this album is like an electronic version of Sung Tongs smashed together with Panda Bear's Person Pitch but less sample heavy.

Allow me to develop that. Sung Tongs was Animal Collective's breakthrough album, a duo album done by Avey Tare and Panda Bear in the freak folk style, all droney/strum-happy acoustic guitars, Beach Boys druggy vocal harmonies, primitive/minimalist drums, and child-like wonder. Literally, since 'Sweet Road' was used in a crayon commercial. But I digress. Person Pitch, then: it was like Panda Bear's coming out party. He was always a crucial element of Animal Collective, but most of their albums belong to Avey Tare. Think of your favorite tracks from previous albums, and there's a good chance it's Avey Tare singing most of it. On Merriweather Post Pavilion Panda Bear spends just as much time on lead vocals as Avey. At the same time, the way these two intertwine and harmonize has gotten better than ever. This, too, hearkens back to Sung Tongs, which was probably the last album where they sang together so much. In fact, one of this album's most unexpected treats is 'Guys Eyes', a song I thought was the weakest until I "got" that it was all about the way their voices work together. What at first seems like a confusing jumble of overlapping vocals eventually resolves into a beautiful harmony of the chorus "what I want to."

I normally try to talk some about the music of an album instead of purely about the ideas or my own reaction to it, describing sound as best I can with words, but in this case I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. I hesitate to let my enthusiasm get the best of me--after all, I'm a professional critic, and I'm above such "emotions" harrumph harrumph--but Merriweather Post Pavilion is all about the experience of hearing these songs for yourself. Every song is a unique, singular entity but they all work together as a cohesive whole. Every time the album ends, I get a little sad. It's as if the movie is over and I have to go back to real life. Or, maybe, since the album is named after a concert venue, it's like going home after a concert...

...bah, OK, I can't resist talking about two of the songs. 'Brothersport' ends the album, and it's the strongest final song they've ever made. Yes, even better than 'Turn Into Something.' It is pure euphoria in audio form, the band's vocal chants and squiggly keyboard/sound loops trading dance moves with bumping bass blurts, skittering shakers, and drum breaks. And 'Bluish' is a syrup thick psychedelic space ballad, Avey Tare drawing galaxies in the sky while we all float around hoping we never have to come down from this high. With its unashamed love song romantics, it hints back to the 'love' album, Feels, which was pretty much all about Avey Tare's feelings for Kria Brekkan (and for what it's worth, the album they made together, Pullhair Rubeye, is awesome if an acquired taste). I really want to tell you about orgasmic peaks of 'Lion In A Coma', the relaxing 'No More Runnin', the Panda Bear showcase 'My Girls' which thematically picks up where 'Chores' from Strawberry Jam left off and...no no, bad Greg!! You said you wouldn't, after all...

One of the true measures of a great album is whether you enjoy it more over time instead of getting tired of it. Merriweather Post Pavilion gets better and better with every listen, the sounds and melodies becoming embedded in your DNA. It's far too soon to tell whether this album will become a classic, but I'm already willing to declare it the best album Animal Collective have made so far, and though we're barely into the year, it's going to end up on my 2009 'best of' list without question. The only question, really, is where Animal Collective will go from here. It's something I wondered after I heard Feels and Strawberry Jam, but for the first time I can honestly say that I don't really care where they go, because I'll follow them anywhere they want to go. Merriweather Post Pavilion isn't a career maker like Sung Tongs was, but it's the next step up: it's a legend maker; a modern day masterpiece. Let me say it as directly as possible: buy this album.