Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion

© Adriano Fegundes

Animal Collective.

If your first introduction to Animal Collective was their 2007 release, Strawberry Jam, then 2009 was an invitation to reconsider the band. The difference two years made was drastic – not newborn to toddler drastic – but more akin to the changes an adult makes in their first two years out of college. Everything in  still recognizable, but to the people who’d listened to Animal Collective before, it was like seeing a young man all grown up. There were hints of a blossoming maturity on their previous album in tracks like "Fireworks," but Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective’s eighth studio album, shows a side to this quartet that is willing to open up, be less frenetic, more emotional, and far more accessible to people who like more music in their music.

Far removed from the screeching, yelling, and anti-harmonic noise that characterized earlier songs like "Peacebone," Merriweather Post Pavilion opens up with "Guy’s Eyes," an exotic yet melodic experimentation in sound. With a backdrop of nature, overlapping vocals that are reminiscent of The Shins provide the listener with something familiar. The song floats in and out from more lyrical moments to others that take the listener away from the harmony. Together, those contrasting elements blend to make a beautiful song. Other tracks, like "In the Flowers" and "Also Frightened," conjure memories of the Beatles during their Norwegian Wood period of plucking sitar strings and distorted vocals. Although Animal Collective’s music is finally comparable to other bands, they are still uniquely themselves. Their music takes chances and ventures out into something strangely striking.

Another departure from previous Animal Collective albums is a greater focus on the lyrics. In the song "My Girls" the band knew when to let the clarity of the vocals and the repetition of the lyrics combine with the produced computer sound to create something tribal and convey a simple message: There isn't much that I feel I need/A solid soul and the blood I bleed/But with a little girl, and by my spouse/ I only want a proper house. While the songs "Summertime Clothes" and "Bluish" uses natural sound rather than electronic backbeats, the poetry of the lyrics is still allowed to emerge. However, this is not true for every song. When the lyrics choose not to tell a story, the vocals still draw the listener into the music as a whole rather than parceling it out between vocals, rhythm, and melody.

While conceptually the entire album doesn’t tell a story, the sounds are seamless. One song flows into the next. Merriweather Post Pavillion is a CD to put on and just press play, no searching for favorite tracks. Although cynics attribute the success of Merriweather to its being the band’s most “Beach Boy-like” album, Animal Collective gained a wider audience in 2009 because being avant guarde is not the only way to get an audience’s attention.