Customer Reviews

Merriweather Post Pavilion

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Animal Collective are one of the most acclaimed indie bands around. They're also one of the most polarizing. You don't often hear someone say, "Animal Collective? Meh. They're okay." It's either, "Man, they're freaking awesome," or "Ya, I just don't get it. What's the appeal?" I was a longtime member of the latter group until about a year ago. Admittedly, I hadn't heard too much of their stuff, what I had heard was mostly their oldest (read: weirdest) stuff, and I had never really given them the time of day. Then I heard the song "#1" from the album 'Strawberry Jam' and really liked it. I listened to the rest of the album and it all just clicked. From there, I fell in love with the band, dutifully scrounging up their past albums.

It was with great anticipation that I listened to 'Merriweather'. I had never heard any live versions of these songs at all before playing this album. I went in with completely virgin ears, free of any expectations or preconceived notions. IMO, this is their greatest album to date, and frankly, it isn't even close. That says more about the quality of MPP then it does of their previous albums.

This has more of an "electronic" sound (for lack of a better word) than past albums. It's not electro-pop or anything like that (maybe "Summertime Clothes" is), but it is very bassy and beat driven. You could almost put this on for a dance party (almost.) I could even imagine an avant garde hip-hop artist rhyming over some of these beats. After finding out that this album was produced by Ben Allen, who has worked with the likes of Gnarls Barkley, P. Diddy, and Christina Aguilera, it made total sense.

It starts off mellow enough, with the wonderful "In the Flowers." It's all beautiful ambiance until about 2:00 in, when Avey Tare says the words, "If I could just leave my body for a night." Then all hell breaks loose. Huge, epic, bassy, synthy awesomeness ensues, until it all simmers back down towards the end.

"My Girls" is probably the catchiest song they've ever recorded, with an amazing, club-ready beat and a chorus of: "I don't mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status/I just want four walls and adobe slats for my girls," followed by a sick drum fill and a shrieking "Woooo!" that would make Ric Flair proud. Not sure if it was intentionally meant to be ironic or not, but I couldn't help but notice that a "social status" isn't really a material thing at all, while "four walls and adobe slats" most certainly are material. Maybe I'm just over-analyzing. Either way, you'll be re-playing that song over and over in your head for some time after hearing it.

"Summertime Clothes" just might be AC's answer to M83's masterful album from 2008, 'Saturdays=Youth'. The first 30 seconds sound very similar to the beginning of the Battles song "Atlas", then it veers into territory that is definitely 80's-ish, but not in a cheeseball way at all. It's a super-catchy tune and is probably the second single behind "My Girls".

"Bluish" is easily the most beautiful song on the album, with a repeating refrain of, "I'm getting lost in your curls," intermingled with lines like, "I like your lips when you get mean." It's a wonderfully ethereal song that evokes memories of high school crushes that felt like they were the only thing worth living for.

The two closing songs, "No More Runnin" and "Brother Sport", couldn't be more different, but they work together wonderfully. The former is a very mellow, sparse, piano driven song that serves as a nice contrast to the rest of the album. The downtime doesn't last long, as "Brother Sport" goes right back to the deep bass and big beat sound, with Panda Bear telling us, "You've gotta open up your, open up your, open up your throat!" It's bouncy and crazy, building layer upon layer to create an incredibly awesome house beat. It's a fantastic end to a fantastic record.

Those are all the highlights, but there aren't really any lowlights to speak of. Whether it's the "#1"-esque synths of "Daily Routine"; the metaphysical musings of "Taste" ("Am I really all the things that are outside of me?" asks Avey); or the didgeridoo driven excitement of "Lion in a Coma", I really can't find any fault with this album. It might alienate some of the hardline, old-school AC fans, but it's just their loss. For anyone who has previously ignored them or just hasn't been feeling this band, give this album a chance. Once it sinks its claws into you, the grip will hold on for quite some time.

The hype has been deafening to say the least. As soon as this album leaked, there were bloggers and reviewers literally falling all over themselves to praise this album. They were already declaring the race for best album of 2009 over 20 days in to the new year and some even went so far as to declare Merriweather Post Pavilion the best album of the decade. One thing is clear, if 2008 lacked a clearly defined critical darling, 2009 already has one with this album.

MPP is sort of a refinement of the direction Animal Collective took with Strawberry Jam. Strawberry Jam may have been their first major stab at pop songwriting, and it felt like a conscious break from their previous work. Instead of working with studio trickery and writing songs based on what kind of warped madness and manipulation they could throw in, Strawberry Jam's songwriting felt sturdy, like they could stand on their own with just an acoustic guitar. MPP has this sturdy songwriting as well for the most part, and most of the rougher parts have been sanded off as well. There's no crazy howling like on Reverend Green or Peacebone this time out. MPP is smooth, dreamy, and downright pleasant. It might be their most accessible album.

MPP makes use of drum loops, samples, and electronics for most of its sound backdrops. It's not electro-pop exactly, but it uses these elements to make a hazy and dreamy atmosphere for most of the songs. It fits in with Radiohead's Kid A and Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as albums that make creative use out of electronics while not being full blown electronica albums.

Sonically, it's most indebted to Panda Bear's solo album Person Pitch, particularly on songs like Guys Eyes and My Girls, where there's a lot of repetition and texture. As usual, the vocals are filled with reverb, and have layered harmonies. I'll drop the obligatory Beach Boys reference, because Noah Lennox sounds quite a bit like Brian Wilson. It also seems that Lennox is taking a more prominent position in the band. That may account for MPP's less abrasive qualities.

For me, most Animal Collective albums have been a bit scattershot. I usually like three or four tunes one each album, and the rest I can without. MPP falls a bit in to the same pattern. My Girls is an amazing song, and maybe my favorite Animal Collective song. It captures their optimistic, even childish side very well. He just wants to take care of his girls. Summertime Clothes is the catchiest song on the album. It's got a very memorable and very bright sounding chorus. The closer Brothersport is another obvious highlight, as is Lion in a Coma.

This time around the songs that aren't highlights are better overall. Daily Routine, No More Runnin, and Guys Eyes are all good songs in their own right, but they don't get as much play as the four mentioned above.

MPP is the most immediate and the most enjoyable Animal Collective album. There are fewer rough edges, fewer weird and warped moments, and it's a very cohesive album overall. Animal Collective, though widely loved in some circles, was kind of on the indie rock periphery. A lot of people didn't get them or outright disliked them. MPP is their shot at becoming widely accepted. It wouldn't surprise me if this album actually charted in the Top 30 on the Billboard Charts.

For my money, Animal Collective's previous attempts at forging some pastiche of tribal spontaneity and skewed approximations of Beach Boy harmonies all failed miserably. I just didn't "get" them. The supposed cathartic power of their whimsical non-melodic non-pop song experiments was, to my confused ears, just pretentious dreck. The depth of their unconventionality, I was convinced, was matched only by their lack of talent.

Needless to say, this album really changed my opinion of the band. This is, as has been echoed by all of the fawning critics, their most polished, accessible, and ultimately best work to date. Which is to say, of course, that this is far from Top 40 material. The subtle layering of vocals over the wafting ether of what sounds like an orchestra of found organic sounds is really quite gorgeous.

In an age of the quick fix, individual MP3 song download, it is refreshing to hear an entire album that was and is meant as a whole album to be listened to in one sitting, in its entirety. MPP plays like some alien pastoral symphony, as one long piece divided into subtly shifting movements designated as "songs".

So maybe I was wrong about the band this whole time? I will definitely have to revisit their previous albums.

It irritates me so much to read some of the the one-star to two-star reviews for this album.

One review in particular made me so mad, because the reviewer stated that after hearing the cd once, he or she tossed it. When you listen to a cd once, you only focus on the exterior of the songs.

To fully enjoy music, you should clear your mind, push away all distractions, and let the music absorb you. One time listeners of Merriweather Post Pavilion will most likely not enjoy the masterpieces that Animal Collective has presented. I've heard this album over 30 times now and every time I listen to it, I get rewarded by a piece of music I missed out on beforehand. Panda Bear, Avey Tare, and Geologist make music the way they want to make music. It's up to all of us listeners to decide whether we enjoy it or not. You either love it or hate it. All I'm trying to say is it takes more than one run through to really be able to rate this album one star.

The members of Animal Collective have grown to make music exactly the way they want to. Listeners should listen to all of Animal Collective's albums and EPs chronologically and maybe then will they realize how much of a present this album is to them.

From start to finish, this album is incredible in so many ways. It really takes you in. I can honestly say that there is no song I would skip.

5 out of 5. 10 out of 10. Most definitely one of the top 5 albums of 2009.

It opens with a low fuzz of some monster growl sound, followed by a guitar loop and some lyrics. And then Panda Bear's fast drum beat combines with high-pitched strings, transforming the first song, "In the Flowers," into one hell of a rave song.

With this opening, Animal Collective dives off the deep end with "Merriweather Post Pavilion," an awesome surreal blend of psychedelic rock with rave sounds. Animal Collective has always filled their songs with an amalgam of electronic sounds and samples with psychedelic rock. However, with "Merriweather Post Pavilion," Animal Collective instead combine the psychedelic electronica to create one hell of a mix of keyboard loops, blasting synthesizer sounds and echoing vocals.

This is one amazing album where all the talents of Animal Collective worked cohesively to make an awesome sound. Although I'll miss Deakin's guitars, Avey Tare and the gang really worked hard to make sure that they didn't sound as awful as the Smashing Pumpkins without their drummer. Panda does incredible work to play drums and synthesizer loops, while Avey Tare layers his echoing vocals with his keyboards and the Geologist's electronics.

It all sounds so incredibly beautiful. And this time Panda Bear is helping out a lot more too. In the second track, "My Girls," the Panda sings, "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," his dream sounds so ethereal with fast arpeggiated electronic synthesizers and slamming bass drum sounds. And by the time he shouts "Whoooo!", I was completely immersed in this surreal world of Panda Bear's booming bass drums and Tare's swirling synthesizers.

In the big picture, however, this entire album really captures the beauty of love and hopes for stability, even in this economic depression. In the song "Lion in a Coma," Avey Tare sings "Please don't leave me/things that feel good/I've been lucky trying to feel good." Perhaps the band is anxious about losing everything, especially in this difficult time of economic recession. However, the gorgeous sounds of didgeridoos, Tare's echoing vocals and a Panda's bass drum thumping an African beat makes their hopes for the future sound so wonderful.

It's a little early to make predictions for the best albums of 2009, but this is my hands-down favorite album of the year. It's impossible to resist this swirling mix of surreal hyper rave electronic sounds and psychedelic synthesizers.

Animal Collective has made a name for themselves with a sound that basically reflects their name. Their albums are chaotic events, with each musician announcing their lyrics and thrashing at their instruments as if they were playing slightly different versions of the same song. I was impressed by their goals, but in past albums I felt like it usually devolved into the musical equivalent of a riot, energetic, complex, but sometimes atonal and unformed.

Sung Tongs and Feels both had songs that I loved and played over and over ("The Purple Bottle," "Did You See the Words?" and "leaf House" were my top three) but both records felt like they were bundles of bizarre jokes, only a handful of which I got. Because of their tongue-in-cheek cacophony, I was never totally sold.

This album, I'd been told over and over, was one of the best of 2009, and although I'd taken a pass on Strawberry Jam, I decided to see what all those "Best Of" lists had been talking about with MPP. What I discovered was that they were right; although Animal Collective hasn't discarded the playful energy of their sound, they have traded in their baffling weirdness for a more meaningful and touching eccentricity.

The album plays out like one long romp through playgrounds and down rainy city alleys. From the opening track -- "In the Flowers," a blustery praise piece that starts with a slow burn -- it's clear that they've learned how to use just a little restraint to show twice as much heart. Although a few of the songs border on cheesy digi-pop ("Summertime Clothes," "Bluish," and "My Girls"), their complex and infectious effervesence makes them stand out all the more.

As in past albums, they make a lot of use of repetition, but just as you think they're going to stress the limits of the listener's patience, they wickedly alter the pace and pall of each song, keeping themselves and listeners on their tones. It's very much an interactive album.

It's still weird, and likely to confuse and turn off many people. But their warmer and more heart-felt sound is certain to draw more curious ears than their past offerings did. As lovely as it is loony, MPP finally shows the world what Animal Collective can do when they focus less on the animal and more on the collective.

A surprisingly good album from AC, a band I've never been able to 'get' up until now. AC always seemed more like sound artists than musicians.
A big part of the change, in my opinion, came with the release of Panda Bear's PERSON PITCH, which I really enjoyed. It seems that a lot of Panda's musicality carried over to this project.
In spite of my early fears, there's not much to say in the negetive about Merriweather Post Pavillion. Avey's voice, which I usually find annoying, is near perfect here. I actually like his leads as much, if not more, than Panda's. Also, there's a wonderful integration of their harmonies this time around. I won't go over the songs one by one- others have done that already. This release bears a lot of the familiar AC trademarks: weird, hypnotic chants; drum sequences that feel unquantized, odd instrumentation choices . . . but one thing that is new, and this was the best part for me, was a remarkable sense of grace- and it flows through every song. I don't know how else to explain it. It's still AC, but they've taken it all to a completely different level. Every band has a voice, but not all of them sing. AC sings beautifully here, in a language I finally understand.

Sounds like someone handed Pet Sounds off to Lee "Scratch" Perry to remix. Quite lovely, in its spacey way.

I've always made it a goal of mine in life to try something new when the opportunity presents itself. From my pre-teen samplings of Indian delicacies to my developing infatuation with high-definition television, I've consistently found that new experiences are truly the spice of life. Sure, there will always be missteps along the way, such as my ill-fated attempt to appreciate modern art and my disastrous foray into death metal, but it's the things you discover that make it all worthwhile.

Animal Collective's latest album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, is just the kind of new adventure that I look forward to the most: the musical expedition into the unknown. I've treaded the Collective's path before; 2005's Feels was a psychedelic enigma that I tried desperately to get into but never really succeeded; for one reason or another, the lyrics always seemed a bit too obtuse and the music way too far out of left field to ever really grab me. Perhaps that was why I never gave 2007's Strawberry Jam a fair chance despite the oodles of critical acclaim, a decision I will surely re-think after listening to Pavilion. Again, Animal Collective has been showered with hyper-literate blogosphere praise and lauded for their experimental creativity, but don't mistake this for the same old hype for musicians who dare to be different: Merriweather Post Pavilion is for real.

The first thing that makes itself fairly evident within the first few minutes of Pavilion is that Animal Collective have fully embraced the pop idiom that they have been flirting with on their last couple of records. Sure, opener "In The Flowers" rides along an otherworldly synth line and a chugging drum machine rhythm before coalescing into a carnival sideshow melody and the Collective's haunting vocals (all four members share vocal duties, but Avey Tare is the primary singer), but gone are the Collective's often off-putting vocal inflections of earlier records and the confusing musical frameworks that set them firmly apart as an "experimental" band. The climactic chorus of interlocked harmonies, threatening bass, and searing electronics is genuine, enjoyable pop.

The band still throws conventional pop song structures to the wind, switching from verse to interlude to gloriously multi-tracked choruses seemingly at whim, but it's this sense of organized chaos that makes Merriweather Post Pavilion such a well-designed record. At 55 minutes, it's one of their longest yet, but one never gets the feeling that Animal Collective is just wasting space and sound. "My Girls" starts off with a space-y keyboard riff and vocals that come out of nowhere seemingly only to announce that "I only want a proper house / I don't care for fancy things" like some cosmic god of the family. It's only when the brilliant chorus comes in, complete with handclaps and unabashedly cheerful "yeaaahs" that the song reveals itself as a hauntingly affecting pop masterpiece.

It's hard to think that Animal Collective could follow up the one-two punch of "In The Flowers" and "My Girls" with a consistent batch of songs to last the rest of the album, but they rarely fail to disappoint. There's the nearly tribal "Also Frightened," which floats along on a detached electronica loop and vocalists Tare and Panda Bear's (yes, that's what he goes by) droning questions. The excellently unhinged "Summertime Clothes," follows, perhaps the most accessible song on the record and easily the most entertaining, with its deliriously happy beat and Tare's drunken declarations of "I want to walk around with you / and be here with you."

No matter how many seemingly out-of-place dance rhythms are mixed with drug-induced guitar riffs or alien harmonies, Animal Collective never seem to lose their grip on the essential pop pulse of their songs. "Bluish" meanders all over the place throughout its five-minute-plus length, from a squishy synth line to seemingly random effects that sound culled from an ancient Nintendo game to a poppy outro stuffed full of unnecessary sounds and falsetto vocals, but in the end it comes off as just another wildly inventive song that, for all its wackiness, works on a record full of them.

Despite what many blog powers may have you think, Animal Collective is not perfect. The problems here are few, but undeniable, most noticeably the ridiculously annoying ear-piercing synth riff that turns "Daily Routine" into perhaps the record's most obnoxious experiment. The mumbled spoken-word lyrics of "Lion in a Coma" lack any particularly intriguing beat to mask them, a surprise for a record that is nearly spot-on with its production and instrumental choices. And whatever you do, don't try to read too much into the lyrics: the Collective might have made their vocals more understandable, but aside from a few choice cuts such as the aforementioned "My Girls," what Tare or Panda Bear say is largely inscrutable.

Merriweather Post Pavilion is the kind of record that comes around only once in a long while. It's most assuredly not everyone's idea of a good time; it requires an open mind and a willingness to drop all preconceived notions of comprehensible music. It is assuredly a critic's record above everything else, not the kind of product that millions will be clamoring for anytime soon, but in their crazily convoluted vision of pop music Animal Collective have created a record that mixes and matches multiple genres while retaining their uniquely art-house sound and their all-important indie credibility. It's only been twenty days into 2009, but already Animal Collective have set a high-water mark in experimental pop that looks likely to stand for years. Oh, and that album cover is sheer genius.

On its own, Merriweather Post Pavilion is a top-notch collection of hazy yet rousing pop chants. There are many highlights--including Brothersport, My Girls, Bluish, Summertime Clothes and No More Runnin'-- and only one real weak spot (the awkward Lion in a Coma). Additionally, the warm, bass-heavy production is a welcome contrast to the poorly-mixed Strawberry Jam LP. Overall, this a perfectly enjoyable listening experience, and likely to be one of the better releases of 2009.

...And yet, as someone who's been in love with this band for quite some time, and has cherished their every album and EP from 2001 on, this release serves as solid proof that our once-radical urban shamans have grown a bit too comfortable with their lives, and with themselves as a musical unit to make truly forward-thinking music anymore. The sound of Sung Tongs has little precedent, with about five other acts (Holy Modal Rounders, Mercury Rev, etc) used to illustrate its "spirit" more than its actual music. Merriweather, on the other hand, can be compared not only to past pop luminaries like Brian Wilson and Paul Simon, and not only to countless indie acts who borrow from such giants, but also to the group's own past work (the album sounds like Panda Bear's Person Pitch with bass and a beat), showing that they're looking backward instead of surging ahead of the rest of the music world.

The pop structure and mixing of Strawberry Jam was the first indicator to me that AC wants to streamline their sound. To be fair though, SJ has a lot more variety of vocals and moods than this one. Merriweather's really pleasant and fun, but it's all very homogenous, with only one real breather from its relentless sugar high.

I'd actually say that Strawberry Jam and MWPP are about equal. They both have frustrating flaws, and they both have a lot to enjoy. Perhaps the only thing that makes this one worse is that it seems like a pattern is emerging with AC in general, and points to future work that is just plain dull.

Here's hoping I'm wrong!