Animal Collective: Striving for Perfection

The current buzz around the music community (and my cubicle) for the past month has revolved completely around the band, Animal Collective. While these guys have been together through nine years and nine studio albums, they have finally reached a point where their critically acclaimed music is at the highest and most approachable level. It's only January and their brand new release, Merriweather Post Pavilion (MPP), is getting near perfect reviews and is being referred to as one of the best albums of 2009. While this is certainly a premature statement, it is one that I will not contest.

The trio, who goes by the individual names of Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist, create a truly unique sound that can most easily be described as psychedelic-pop. I like to think of them as a modern day jam band, where electronics take the forefront and the songs are built on layers and layers of instruments, noises, beats, and echoing vocals. Through all this, the band still entirely provokes feelings and lyrics revolving around human emotions.

Merriweather Post Pavilion, is indisputably Animal Collective's most polished album and as well as their "popiest" one too. MPP is friendlier than previous works too. By leaving out Avey's and Panda Bear's amplified yelping from previous works, it gets it power through its highly addictive melodies. I love, or rather, am obsessed with this album and it appears that the majority of music listeners agree (except Ashley who hates them). Needless to say, there was a lot of hype about the beginning of their MPP tour. So much so that the $25 ticket I bought prior to the MPP release was going for as much as three to four times that the day of the concert.

This was my third time seeing Animal Collective and besides the great new array of songs, the thing that stuck out most for me about this show was the awesome crowd. From the beginning and throughout the seventy-five minute set, the audience was nothing less than completely enthralled. The show more closely resembled a worship service than a music concert.

The night began with one of my favorites from MPP, Lion in a Coma. While I was instantly excited after hearing the first couple of chords of this song, the vocals were so hard to make out and therefore pretty disappointing. Luckily, they resolved this problem quickly and carried out another ten songs. MPP dominated the set with seven of the eleven tracks making an appearance. Highlights included my favorite Summertime Clothes, captive crowd pleaser My Girls, and an amazing energetic Brothersport. The set also featured a new unreleased song Blue Sky and one of the oldies that the band is having fun reworking, Slippi. As if more work needed to be added to an already almost perfect MPP portfolio.

The show was cut a little short due to Avey losing his voice (and actually canceled the next night's show in LA). Instead, there was a single Panda Bear original song encore that he and Geologist rocked out to. The phenomenal song Comfy in Nautica was overall the highlight of the night. It was full of energy and brought the crowd together in a sense of community as everyone was waving their arms towards and back from the stage in perfect rhythm.

If you are a long time Animal Collective fan, or are hearing about them now for the first time, Merriweather Post Pavilion is a heroic album that I would recommend to most music appreciators. It is a great place to start to explore the music of AC, as they have just about now reached their own unique perfection.