Animal Collective: Feels
FatCat

Invariably any band with a handful of releases under its belt undergoes change of one form or another and, just as invariably, said change incites conflicting responses in its fan base. Confronted with the relatively civilized Feels, some Animal Collective devotees may bemoan the apparent taming of the beast and miss the spirit of unhinged derangement that possessed previous material. Listeners desirous of a more controlled substance, on the other hand, may welcome the new album's more accessible compositional structures and well-behaved disposition. Interpret the latter in relative terms, however, as Feels, especially in its opening songs, shows the group still capable of exploding with hyperactive fury.

While only two members of the Brooklyn-based ensemble—Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) and Avey Tare (David Porter)—created Sung Tongs, the pair is joined on Feels by Geologist (Brian Weitz) and Deakin (Josh Dibb), plus Eyvind Kang on violin and Kristín Anna Valtysdóttir (Múm) on piano. Though the group's sound is tamer, it hasn't lost its trippy psych-folk identity, nor has its ragged primitiveness been traded in for airbrushed perfectionism. Avey Tare still eruptively yelps within songs that sound like escapees from some magical forest of mischievous spirits, and there's no shortage of gleeful experimentalism either (which, on songs like the hyper-amped “The Purple Bottle,” recalls the drug-addled Smiley Smile).

In the opener, “Did You See the Words,” field noise of children and birds quickly morphs into a driving march with the song growing increasingly euphoric as a mad chorus of voices woozily rises and falls whilst plinking pianos cascade like waterfalls. “Grass” follows, a rambunctious folk-romp with babbling vocals (that sometimes resemble a less glammy Marc Bolan) shouted as if from within a deep tunnel.

The album's less frenetic second half is more meditative and delicate (though the party spirit returns in the closer “Turn Into Something,” a warped hootenanny romp). “Bees” conjures an hallucinatory oasis of dulcimer-like strums and sleepy vocal drift while the eight-minute “Banshee Beat” incrementally gathers speed, though never explodes into the rave-up one anticipates. The collection's most delectable moment arrives rather unassumingly in “Loch Raven,” an entrancing lullaby of soft harmonies and bright metronomic pulses. If Feels ultimately sounds less chaotic than the group's past releases, it's still a spellbinding stop on the Animal Collective journey.

November 2005