Feels is breathlessly giddy and shamelessly trippy.
Feels is weird if we put it up against such bizarre works like the neo-psych insanity of Here Comes the Indian and the cool, comfortable Campfire Songs, but when putting in perspective, it’s another evolution in the AnCo discography that was bound to happen sooner or later.
Feels is a psychedelic wonderland filled with life-affirming warmth.
Like Animal Collective's previous full length, Feels is sequenced carefully, with jauntier, tuneful numbers leading to an amorphous back half.
Feels takes the Collective in an exciting new direction, creating the kind of record that expands on the group's less esoteric strengths while also pushing their sound forward.
Half of the album is rambunctious and full, driving and manic; the other half charms us with melancholic lullabies fueled by a single sip from the purple bottle. The result: With Feels, Animal Collective has created its first pop masterpiece.
Feels depends on a balancing act between brilliance and whimsy, and some may need convincing that a purposely childlike band ... is not twee.
The great achievement of Feels is that it throws everything at every track yet never loses sight of the tunes themselves.
Feels is a highly rewarding journey into pop music's most primal, earthy, esoteric and ultimately beautiful places. And it's unlike anything else you will hear this year.
A handful of cuts simply drift by unremarkably, but at its best, Feels gives hope to young bands who want to make beautiful noise but refuse to color within the lines.
Animal Collective's Feels fails to come together as a coherent whole.
๐๐ป๐ถ๐บ๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ผ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ'๐ ๐๐ถ๐๐ฐ๐ผ๐ด๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ฝ๐ต๐: ๐๐ฒ๐ฒ๐น๐
Feels is the second of what I see as the “big four” of AnCo’s discography; the four albums that would lead to them being seen as one of the 2000s greatest pop artists. It is also, strangely enough, the most overlooked of these four, at least in my experience. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sung Tongs and the albums following this one, but ... read more
A psychedelic pop dreamscape.
Feels by Animal Collective is a fun and engaging psychedelic album that jumps around with character. And it does an amazing job bringing you into an atmosphere full of bright instrumentals and fun vocal melodies. With sometimes dipping their toes into a calmer and slower style that explodes with beauty.
Now with any psychedelic record, there's going to be a lot of reverb. And I feel like with Animal Collective records, they always go with a ton of it. And I do ... read more
whole album's great but fuck me Banshee Beat all the way to the end is an absolutely remarkable stretch.
Fuck man, that was a trip.
Feels is exactly what the title suggests. It's many emotions and feelings molded into an amalgam that's both cryptic and deeply moving. From beginning to end, it holds your attention with stylized instrumentals, atmospheric soundscapes and jarring vocal melodies. It blends into something that teeters on the line of 'uncanny as fuck" to "warm and jovial". While I think the whole album is pretty damn good, the back half is what elevates it for me. ... read more
I didn’t love “Merriweather Post Pavilion”, but the confidence the band displayed made me curious about their other work.
“Feels” is definitely confident. The first song is filled with some very dense and difficult to desire poetry with lots of blood and organ metaphors.
I think it’s comparing violence to sex, but I honestly don’t know.
This first song, “Did You See The Words” is also dense sonically, packed to the brim with musical ideas. ... read more
1 | Did You See the Words 5:15 | 95 |
2 | Grass 2:59 | 93 |
3 | Flesh Canoe 3:44 | 86 |
4 | The Purple Bottle 6:48 | 95 |
5 | Bees 5:38 | 89 |
6 | Banshee Beat 8:22 | 97 |
7 | Daffy Duck 7:34 | 90 |
8 | Loch Raven 4:59 | 92 |
9 | Turn into Something 6:29 | 94 |
#3 | / | No Ripcord |
#7 | / | Pitchfork |
#36 | / | SPIN |