Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective

Merriweather's sound plays like both a summation and an expansion of everything Animal Collective has done so far, with a sharper focus on melody and more emboldened vocals that drive the songs.

MPP is a dense studio record with a prominent synthetic pulse, but AC does not jettison warmth by leaning ‘lectronic, instead defying the sterility associated with its own techniques. 

The boys of Animal Collective have mapped out some previously uncharted waters, producing a style of music that could belong to no one else; a distinctive, flawless fusion of the semi- automated and the wholly organic. 

What they've constructed here is a new kind of electronic pop-- one which is machine-generated and revels in technology but is also deeply human, never drawing too much attention to its digital nature.

This is the new indie ethos: Don’t think; dance.

Is Merriweather Post Pavilion the flawless album that it's been willed to be? Taken as a whole I'd say it's pretty damn close. 

On Merriweather, their art reminds us that immersion in Western tropes need not be met with scorn, that not all of its idioms have yet been exhausted, that embracing optimism and melody can still be so relevant -- and it aches in the most soulful of ways.

Oozing fun out of every pore, this record is the perfect tonic to the increasingly troubled times that 2009 brings with it and will most likely feature on many of those Best Of lists come December.

" I don't care for fancy things " Animal Collective

With every release Animal Collective has made strange change ups in sounds and defining the world they create with their music, channelling foreign energy and atmospheres but never have they ever felt so close to the human soul.