“She’s upset that they keep changing the taste of Coke,” a sample from the 1980’s sitcom Golden Girls begins “Golden Gal”, and describes Animal Collective’s career and their first album in four years, Painting With, perfectly. Changing “tastes” with each album, from the freak folk of Sung Tongs, to the ambient-pop masterpiece that was Merriweather Post Pavilion, to whatever the heck genre Centipede Hz was, the experimental pop band from Baltimore have certainly been pushing music in a more interesting direction, albeit different directions each time, and Painting With is no exception. But what makes this album so intriguing is that Animal Collective, which features the vocals of both Avey Tare and Panda Bear. and the talents of “sound processor” Geologist, have taken away the different “tastes” that have characterized their previous albums, creating a fast paced experimental electronic pop album that can only be described as an Animal Collective album.
A welcome addition back to the sound of Animal Collective is the harmonizing between Avey and Panda’s voices, a characteristic of the band that had been missing from previous albums, most notably on 2012’s Centipede Hz and 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, which focused more on Tare’s and Panda’s vocals, respectively. The return makes itself the msot pronounced on songs “Golden Gal”, “On Delay”, “Vertical” and “The Burglars”, which also happen to be the best songs on the album. “The Burglars” in particular gives even further credence to the comparisons to the Beach Boys Animal Collective has amassed in their careers, as the song features the best parts of the duos vocal styles. Panda Bear’s “Woah-Ohs” provide the perfect background to Avey Tare’s fast as lightning lyrics about a cautionary tale about a group of theives who are going to steal your things (“What you own you don’t anymore / Watch out for the burglars”), evoking some “Surfin USA” or “Good Vibrations” feelings for fans of both bands.
“Vertical” is another song that gives fans a taste of the harmonizing vocals that they have been thirsting for for a long while. The song begins with humble beginnings, with just a simple drum rhythm mixed with distorted vocals that eventually morphs into Panda Bear’s voice, and adds Avey Tare’s voice to trade lyrics with one another. It is a song that in its first minute sounds like a perfect dream for any Animal Collective fan, as the simple and ambient instrumentation melts perfectly with the duo’s vocals, but it quickly devolves when the pre-chorus begins, as a bloated and intrusive electronic sound break the vocals up and instead puts itself at the forefront of the mixing. This is fixed when the voices are placed back at the top of the mixing as the chorus begins (Avey and Panda sing together “My feet can’t cross the parking lot / The parking hot is way too hot”), but it is hard for the song to have a sense of proper continuation when the overreaching sound appears again for the second round of the pre-chorus. This is a slight gripe with the album, as a bloated electronic sound would occasionally get in the way of the more nuanced sounds that are underneath, making some moments difficult to listen to.
While the sounds created by Geologist are an issue for the album, it pales in comparison to the use of hocketing vocal style, where the vocalist(s) repeat words or syllables on the off beat as it is originally sang. Panda Bear used this technique quite well on the song “Boys Latin” from his 2015 solo album, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, getting praised with how well the unique vocal style worked within the context of the album. Unfortunately, it seems, hocketing seems to be only pleasant in small doses, as Painting With uses this style on multiple songs, most notably on “Hocus Pocus”, “Lying in the Grass” and “Summing the Wretch” . While not completely detracting the overall quality of the album, it can certainly be said that the best parts of the album are when hocketing isn’t being employed.
Overall, Painting With gives listeners what seems to be the natural and logical evolution of their sound, giving a dense and at times overcrowded sound mixed in with the simple instrumentation and vocal harmonies that they started out with, a combination of new and old Animal Collective. It will certainly be interesting to see where the band will go next sonically, but one thing will almost always remain certain: the taste of Coke will always be changing.
8/10
Andrew Zilbauer // Web Editor
