Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective is weird. They use samplers instead of drums and guitars. They seed perfectly enjoyable melodies with distortion and screams. Their inscrutable sound changes drastically from one release to the next. Still — starting with 2004’s Sung Tongs — one can trace a clear progression from the spontaneous experimentation that characterized their early work to straight-up, unadulterated pop songs. Merriweather Post Pavilion is the culmination of this evolution.

Certainly, the Collective’s trademark eccentricities remain largely intact on their latest album — see the fractured introduction to “Guys Eyes” or the 9/4 time signature of “Lion in a Coma” for proof. Yet all of those experimental tendencies achieve a new resonance thanks to Animal Collective’s increased focus on accessibility and unerring ear for melody and harmonization.

Thus, Merriweather Post Pavilion plays less like a “difficult” experimental record and more like a densely warped version of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds or The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s fun, catchy and genuinely accessible to newcomers — much more than any other work in their back catalog.

Pavilion‘s most immediate highlight is the effervescent “My Girls,” an ode to fatherly protectiveness and the need to provide for your kids. Over glittery synths and sparse percussion, frontmen Panda Bear and Avey Tare harmonize to unfurling melodies before the exultant outro bursts forth — “I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things/ I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls!”


Animal Collective - "My Girls"
Even better is the strangely danceable rave-up “Summertime Clothes” — opening up with a dissolving synth line and a four-on-the-floor bass drum kick, the song builds into pure sugary pop goodness. Elsewhere, highlights such as “Bluish” and “Brother Sport” offer keening Beach Boys melodies over summery-sounding synths. While traditional song structures are largely eschewed here, each of these songs is approachable and fun to casual and hardcore fans alike.

Notably, Pavilion is the first release for which the band chose to include a lyrics sheet. It’s no coincidence, then, that the band’s lyrics are more fully realized than usual. The crib sheet reveals an album full of ruminations about family, childhood and love. The best lines often come from Avey Tare, whose illustrations of innocence and youthful desire are simple yet evocative. Oftentimes, Animal Collective will use musical elements to complement these lyrics — for example, “Daily Routine” uses jarring synth stabs to simulate an alarm clock. These touches greatly enhance the songs by keeping the listener grounded in the subject matter.

Much more than other contemporary artists, Animal Collective are truly pushing the boundaries of pop music and blazing new pathways in the process. With each new album, the band’s increasing accessibility allows more and more music fans to join in the conversation. Though Merriweather Post Pavilion is simply too weird to ever become a Billboard hit, it’s certainly their most easily digestible and enjoyable record to date.

Originally written for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2009/jan/15/pavilion-is-a-step-forward/