1 post tagged “animal collective”
2) “Strawberry Jam”, by Animal Collective
Another new development of 2007: Animal Collective puts out an album that’s…actually an album?! Yep, the creepy quartet did put out a new album this year, and it’s an album in every sense (or at least more than the other releases by AC have been). The songs start, progress, and some of them even have a verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus progression. It’s astonishing what the band can do when they’re not just on LSD (although I’m not saying their older albums were bad…”Here Comes the Indian” is probably one of my all-time favorite albums), as “Strawberry Jam” shows. And regardless of the structure they have found in their songs, the music is still epileptic, quirky, and creepy. Avey Tare doesn’t bring out the crazy screaming voice like he used to, but it comes out a bit in songs like ‘Peacebone’ and ‘For Reverend Green’. Speaking of ‘Peacebone’, I thought it was a great move to put that track in the beginning, as it resembles both the band’s changes and their roots. A lot of the tracks have this old/new blend, but I found it most prominent in the opening track, which combines time-signature-less synthesizer patterns with…pretty much everything else.
But “Strawberry Jam” doesn’t sound like it was simply thrown together; I’m pretty sure that Animal Collective has the mathematical precision of bands like Spoon, but they choose to make their songs full and chaotic. The ragtime piano in ‘Fireworks’, the random synth patterns in ‘Peacebone’, and the Stomp-esque percussion in ‘Derek’ all signify this precision. If the band was just jamming, the music would be completely different, as their live shows tend to reveal. Regardless, the instrumentation is nearly perfect for each song, and although most songs start with one simple pattern that is repeated throughout the song, the album rarely gets repetitive. I think my favorite songs on the album are the longer ones, such as ‘For Reverend Green’, which might or might not infer a pedophilic preacher (although the outro lyrics of “For Reverend Green/Rubbing Me” seem to allude to this). The sound doesn’t change as much within singular songs, but each individual song on the album carries a unique sound that tends to fit well with its predecessor and successor. A lot of the songs just have one guitar riff repeated under fluctuating keyboards, percussion, and lyrics, yet this isn’t really a problem for me. It stays engaging no matter how many times you’ve listened to it.
Another upside to the album is its ability to convey certain messages. Although Avey Tare’s cryptic lyrics might not come through all the time (which happens on songs like ‘#1’ and ‘Cuckoo Cuckoo’), the song title often gives you hints as to what the song is about, and the feel of the song plays a large part in this as well. The music in Animal Collective’s albums is much more important than the lyrics, and they are often only included for new and weird sounds, which Tare provides plenty of. New and weird sounds are also a staple of Animal Collective’s music; although this album is not as experimental, per se, as its predecessors, there are still some pretty weird sounds and songs. This album is probably not for the faint of heart, and definitely not for those who like their music stiff and organized. Fortunately, I am neither of these people, and I have to say that this album is a huge advancement for the band, and definitely one of the best albums of this year.
Recommended Listening: “Peacebone”, “For Reverend Green”, “Fireworks”, “Derek”.
-blake
