Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam (Domino)
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
For a band obsessed with always doing things differently, always evolving, 'Peacebone' is about the most 'different' thing Animal Collective have ever done. This is simply because in terms of things like a structure that's easy enough to latch on to, and a vocal melody to which your average prole could hum along, the opening track on their extraordinary 'Strawberry Jam' album is actually remarkably conventional. There are no drawn out soundscapes, none of that half petrified, half elated yelping, just the best 'whistle-along-at-home-bit' of the year, and the first proper Animal Collective pop song.
They'd threatened that they had a pop band in them, and that he would be unleashed, for a while. Each record has for Animal Collective been a process of cleaning away layers of itself oddly intriguing grime in an attempt to get a clearer glimpse at this mythical pop combo. With 'Strawberry Jam' (also a contender for front cover of the year - look at all that lovely jam, so close...) they unveil just enough of that side of themselves to be totally accessible, but leave just enough crust atop it to ensure that you'll never have them perfectly figured out. They're not going any further in, not for the moment at least - any new discoveries you'll have to make yourselves, using nothing but reason.
It's not that they've suddenly become incredible - the preceding 'Feels' is a marvellous record' - but that they've become incredibly better, by exploring things that other bands do already and showing them that they just don't go far enough. The Panda Bear album 'Person Pitch', itself one of the year's best, hinted that the new album from Panda / Noah Lennox's parent band (duh, Animal Collective!) might have its fair share of hummable bits, but whereas that was one man's attempt to see what would happen if Brian Wilson had actually taken 'Pet Sounds' to its limits, there are three other incredibly talented musicians at work on 'Strawberry Jam', each bringing their own blanket of some sound or other, be that abrasive noise, distant twinkling or seemingly random thuds that lift the sides of your mouth upwards every time they hit. 'Unsolved Mysteries' is four and a half glorious minutes of all that at once.
That said, Panda's influence is a strong one. Strongest on the modern lullaby of the closing 'Derek', the place where the melody is most pure for a minute and a half, before the song is transported in to a cathedral for the closing assault of a one man choir of vocals, a low, ever-rumbling boom and rhythm track that seems to be composed entirely of sacks of money being rapidly, repeatedly dropped, lifted, dropped, lifted...
So, the quirks remain, but the melody is brought to the forefront for the first time, paraded in all its glory. If you thought 'Peacebone' was so incredible that, whilst 'Strawberry Jam' still had the potential to be a decent album, nothing could quite top it, you're lucky in that you're wrong. The first of its surpassers is a manically joyous 'Chores', which sounds like the Pixies 'Levitate Me' as covered by Sunburned Hand of the Man, and is played with more glee than even writing that comparison can give this writer. And believe me, that's a whole lorra glee. To follow it with another stonker is a brave move that pays off handsomely. We should be trusted when we say that there will be few sounds this decade that so accurately represent a true human emotion like the scream given on 'For Reverend Green' (it's something to do with the way it just grows...) and although this one takes a while to pull itself in to focus, being formed out of seemingly irregular rhythm patterns and curiously distant keyboard pulsing, its also got another one of those killer melodies that this band now seem capable of knocking out at will. It's sister song in terms of rampant screaming for the sake of nothing other than overwhelming happiness is the penultimate 'Cuckoo Cuckoo', also only making sense of itself after a few minutes before exploding like a bomb going off at an All Tomorrow's Parties festival, sending shards of other bands flying in all directions, only glimpses available, with AC the black box that survives it all.
That the most hook laden moments are at the beginning of the record is wholly deliberate. They aren't trying to be brash or confrontationally accessible, they're simply luring you in with the nice stuff to convince you to stay and concentrate when it gets a little less obvious, a little more surreal. These parts have their own beauty - 'Fireworks' could even be described as tender. Oddly, with it being followed by the effortlessly sparkly '#1', 'Strawberry Jam' loses pace but doesn't lose your interest. It's snagged you in with the catchy stuff so well that you're here for the duration, in fact, they'd doused those pop melodies with enough tantalising weirdness all along that by the time the final furlong of the album unfolds itself, you're finding winning melody in the strangest of noises. Maybe now they are trying to mess with you a little bit, trying to hide that pop band we talked about which they seemed so proud of, but by this point, you're wise to their tricks. You enjoy the very trick of it.
Stream 'Peacebone' from 'Strawberry Jam' HERE.
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