In an aesthetically accurate way, the quality and style of Animal Collective’s music is well-represented by the visual artwork of their new album, “Strawberry Jam.”
The album’s cover and liner pages picture what appears to be a molded strawberry oozing vibrant colors and molten jelly, forming an image that is at once curious, grotesque and glorious.
“Strawberry Jam,” the band’s eighth record, is arguably their best and definitely the most crowd-friendly.
While maintaining the style Animal Collective has honed over years of music making both together and in side projects, the group has crafted a successful album by delicately tipping the scales of hectic cacophony and ephemeral beauty.
Sure, it gets frustrating when Animal Collective bombards us with the sounds of fireworks and warfare, but the promise of genius moments when the melody overrides the chaos, carries the listener through to the end. It’s there that the listener realizes the true wonder of Animal Collective.
The first track on “Strawberry Jam” is “Peacebone.” The ingredients of the song include a nice melody obscured by growls and groans, a poppy chorus and lyrics that weave a narrative about a monster (or something). Listeners interested in this song should be encouraged to check out its video, available all over the Internet, which ranks among the best indie videos you’re likely to see.
The next track, “Unsolved Mysteries,” sees lead vocalist Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox) falling “from such happy lawns/ into nostalgia’s palm,” and in doing so introduces Animal Collective as a band with lyrics worth paying attention to.
In the past, the group’s exhausting, choppy sound didn’t allow for wordplay, but on “Strawberry Jam,” they’ve taken it down a notch and given us some words to chew on. It’s a good thing. Lyrically, this is by far Animal Collective’s best work yet.
The remainder of the album rushes by in a cloud of sparks and explosions, of noise rock and psych folk. Some highlights include the double-whammy of “Fireworks” and “#1,” both exceptionally good samplings of Animal Collective’s fine frenzy.
Finally, the musical concoction culminates with “Derek,” an intriguing song that borrows sounds from the album’s past tracks to create a lovely, ambiguous ending to the album as a whole.
“Strawberry Jam” is good work, but I must admit that Animal Collective music is not for the faint of heart.
Their songs can be maddening for newcomers, and that’s why I’ve limited myself to four stars even though I’m tempted to write the whole thing off as brilliant.
If you do listen to the album, give yourself time. In my experience, Animal Collective records aren’t particularly good or meaningful until the third or fourth listen.
But after that, they tend to sound straight-up magnificent and as sweet as the best strawberry jam I’ve ever tasted.
