Animal Collective Reward With Kind New Release
Why won't this band do something we can make fun of!?
Animal Collective
Fall Be Kind
Released on Dec 15, 2009
Since
Animal Collective’s headlining spot at last year’s Pitchfork Music
Festival and the meteoric rise that followed, thousands of indie kids
have grudgingly accepted that it is okay – good, even – to dig music
that jams. While we aren’t yet to the point that a standard
AC conversation compares multiple live versions of “Fireworks -->
Essplode,” less improvisation-familiar fans of the group are at the
very least recognizing and appreciating the increasing divergence of
Animal Collective’s live performances from their studio efforts. This
has made for, among other things, a lot of unintentionally hilarious
dancing. Fall Be Kind acknowledges the separation between the
two sides of Animal Collective and presents a set that, while it wouldn’t
be out of place as an add-on to this year’s classic Merriweather
Post Pavilion, pushes that record’s accessibility a step further
while emphasizing the space between sounds in a way that Merriweather’s
busy aesthetic often overlooks. The result is a disarming 20 minutes
of sound collage and psychedelic pop that largely stands up with the
best in the group’s catalog.
Early press for the EP has focused almost entirely on the band’s use of the first-ever legally cleared sample of the Grateful Dead’s music. Shined-up live staple “What Would I Want? Sky” deserves the focus, but not just for the band’s appropriation of its famous forefathers. The track’s rearranged vocal snippet of overlooked Phil Lesh tune “Unbroken Chain” serves as the song’s chorus, but ultimately serves as a supporting act to a surprisingly clear and straightforward pop vocal by David “Avey Tare” Portner. The ambling, textured “Sky” is the centerpiece of Fall Be Kind, and one of Animal Collective’s finest, most concise statements as a group.
Lest
you think of Fall Be Kind as a glorified single, the rest of
the disc is anything but filler. Portner shines again on multi-directional
opener “Graze,” which shifts from formless, woozy balladry to a
more conventionally Animal-Collective-y mover featuring a tribal beat,
the group’s distinctive vocal blend and indisputably the year’s
best use of Zamfir. A nice call and response between Portner and
Noah “Panda Bear” Lennox throughout cavernous interlude “Bleed”
gives way to the sound of passing cars and the introspective “On A
Highway,” a tour diary of sorts and Portner’s ode to the conflict
for performers who both love the road and can’t bear to be away from
home. While the EP will likely be remembered by most for Avey Tare’s
vocal contributions, Panda Bear does not go unnoticed, and explores
slightly darker territory while imagining Brian Wilson as a factory
worker on seven-minute closer “I Think I Can.”
In a year full of exceptional stories, the takeover of a large part of the indie landscape by one of its strangest inhabitants has been, at the very least, fun to watch. Animal Collective’s emergence as a live juggernaut and book-ending of 2009 with two (okay, one and a half) of the year’s best releases cements the group’s importance in the music world at large. Are they getting too popular? Too poppy? Check back in a couple of months, after the Super Bowl debut of the “Brother Sport” Pepsi commercial. I’m kidding, right?
High Point
The ingenious “Sky,” surprisingly accessible songwriting (particularly by Portner) and great sonic textures make for an essential addition to the group’s oeuvre.
Low Point
Uniformly strong, but not necessarily a complete musical statement.
Posted by Miguel Harvey on Dec 15, 2009 @ 6:30 am
