Painting With

Animal Collective - Painting With
Critic Score
Based on 41 reviews
2016 Ratings: #701 / 1004
User Score
Based on 713 ratings
2016 Rank: #702
Liked by 25 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

95
The 405

Painting With is not only the best Animal Collective album since 2009 (and arguably their best ever), but it could also go down as the closest thing this generation will have to getting a new Pet Sounds.

83
Pretty Much Amazing
Where it lacks wild-eyed adventurousness, it compensates with clarity and focus. Offerings of pure pop pleasure are offset with healthy doses of weirdness. Itโ€™s a sincere, exciting and excitable album that successfully adds by subtracting.
80
Uncut

Painting With is striking because it manages to distill the essence of Animal Collective into 12 slices of bite-size psych-pop that have the punchy immediacy of a Ramones album.

80
NOW Magazine

Although the album revels in its sonic clutter (it’s remarkable how they can make percussive rhythms sound both primitive and absurdly futuristic), there are tracks scattered throughout to catch your breath.

80
Record Collector

There’s a time and place for material this demanding of the listeners’ attention, and it does take repeated listens for the album to really make sense, but when the mood fits, Painting With hits the spot like only they can.

80
Loud and Quiet

Far from clinical, it is a much sparser effort than previous albums, relying primarily on filtered vocals and electronic percussion, while modular synthesisers rasp and twist.

80
AllMusic

Undeniably great sounding, the record puts Animal Collective's brightest colors forward and, if history is any indication, is no predictor whatsoever of what they may do next.

80
NME

Overall, ‘Painting With’ is a dizzying, lurid treat, almost too much to take in, craving its natural habitat. And it’ll really come alive out in the wild.

80
SPIN

Animal Collective’s latest sees them painting with confidence, acrylics, dinosaurs, Bob Ross, a twist, and a wipe out.

80
DIY

An album about doing away with boundaries, escaping definition, and running riot across a whole everywhere world of possibilities, Animal Collective have discovered that everywhere portal key they’re searching for in ‘Painting With’.

80
The Skinny
A leaner sound frames typically abstract lyrical preoccupations ... and Animal Collective still lay down a challenge. It's the sound of a band refreshed.
80
Slant Magazine

It's as weird an album as any Animal Collective has made ... but for both its earnest, uninhibited sense of play and the impeccable pop craft that organizes it all, underlying even its most eccentric moments, Painting With is also a uniquely affecting one.

75
Consequence of Sound

Painting With relies on minimal beats and textures to become instantly familiar, comfortable, and fun from the get-go.

75
A.V. Club

Animal Collective is capable of crafting self-serious, masterful records; Painting With shows that the group is perhaps even better at making something meaningful when it loosens up.

75
The Line of Best Fit

On this record the band seem to be firmly doing exactly what they want and not simply fulfilling the inevitability of the next thing. There are some striking, startling and sublime moments on Painting With, even if it is at times a little dis-jointed.

70
Rolling Stone

The songs just hit liftoff five times faster than ever before, driven hard by Panda Bear's cartoonishly expressive slapstick-EDM beats. The results are weirdly addictive and enjoyably absurd.

67
Entertainment Weekly

Part of what has made Animal Collective so revered is their disregard for traditional song structure and melody. They’re still testing those limits on Painting With, but the product rarely feels as groundbreaking.

62
Pitchfork

Painting With feels, more than anything, like a kind of construction project: Each sound meticulously built and only faintly familiar, each second crammed with doodads, as though the band was worried either they or their audience might get bored.

60
The Observer

Some tracks ... aren’t actually as immediate as you would want them to be.

60
Q Magazine
If the absence of slow-builds and ambient drones makes for more succinct tunes, they're still no snappier. Choruses won't be bellowed, the air won't be bellowed, the air won't be punched, devotees will likely be delighted.
60
Mojo
For all their organic methods, these Animals often come across so robotic and constricted--witness natural Selection's echoes of woozy Chicago house classic Washing machine--stripping those painstaking vocal arrangements of their humanity.
60
The Guardian

Amid the stuff that seems to be going out of its way to drive you up the wall, there are moments when the album works to pretty dazzling effect.

60
Clash

A record that has moments of brilliance but by virtue of trying to be a novelty record, actually comes closer to being a rehash of their previous work.

60
Exclaim!

Painting With is arguably the most melodic of Animal Collective's many records, and yet, it's also one of the least memorable — by the album's end, it's hard to recall much about the compositions here, even after a number of run-throughs.

60
Resident Advisor

Animal Collective still have plenty of whimsical creativity left in them, but on Painting With they mostly color inside the lines.

60
No Ripcord

Painting With feels just far too interpolated, and even familiar, to truly grasp, though through its failures it manages to somehow bring them one step closer to achieving those awe-inspiring moments of yore.

60
PopMatters

Painting With is unmistakably an Animal Collective album, but in its eager familiarity, it ultimately neglects the one all-important quality of any Animal Collective record: novelty.

60
musicOMH

This is turbo-charged psych rock that leaves you feeling that you’ve experienced a rollercoaster ride through Willy Wonka’s factory on acid. For the most part, it’s exhilarating in its immediacy, but occasionally it becomes overwhelmingly nauseating.

60
Tiny Mix Tapes

The songs here offer glimpses of hope that there is plenty of magic and power left in these humans, that the future holds another singular release from their camp. Painting With lacks the consistency to be that work.

50
The Needle Drop
Animal Collective plays it straight, stripping away their usual sonic mayhem, on their latest album.
50
Paste

There is nothing inherently terrible about Painting With—it’s generally a pleasant record by most standards—it is the first Animal Collective record that feels like it has no place in this world, neither in their narrative or in relation to indie rock in general, which is striking, considering the tremendous influence they once had.

50
Drowned in Sound

It is ... quite irritating: the trio push the record's formula into borderline novelty territory, via cutesy samples and saccharine sweet excess that masks the humanity of their best work.

30
Under the Radar

It's the sound of a band ingesting a whole load of cheap, brightly colored plastic toys and vomiting them back up all over a record.

Windy
49

๐—”๐—ป๐—ถ๐—บ๐—ฎ๐—น ๐—–๐—ผ๐—น๐—น๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐˜๐—ถ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ'๐˜€ ๐——๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐—ด๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ฝ๐—ต๐˜†: ๐—ฃ๐—ฎ๐—ถ๐—ป๐˜๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ช๐—ถ๐˜๐—ต

“Their most accessible album to date”
~James Acaster, on Painting With by Animal Collective

There’s not much more to say, to be honest. Regarding Animal Collective’s 10th studio album, Painting With, I find myself agreeing with Mr. Acaster and @Knewnie; it’s accessible, it’s got some decent ... read more

depechemode4lif
41

Big oof. It always sucks when you decided to listen to more albums from an artist you enjoyed a few projects from and stumble across something just not that good. Considering I heard their two most acclaimed albums and also wanted to hear their debut, I also wanted to get a glimpse into what they are doing these days and decided to check out this album instead of the ambient one.

I mean this has all the fundamentals of an Animal Collective record but lacks the edge, creativity, and zaniness ... read more

SnowyFighter
68

I guess we will never know what they’re painting with

Not a bad record here! Jumping around a little bit in their Discog I landed on Painting With, which honestly is a bit of an inoffensive and decent listen. A lot of the sounds on this record reminds me a ton of stuff that’s on Strawberry Jam or Marriweather, but I think what’s missing for me is just the stickier songwriting. It’s really well produced and put together, but I don’t find there to be as much ... read more

kobeniscar
85

I don’t see why this is hated I genuinely enjoyed this more than a lot of other AnCon albums

70

Floridadadadadadadadadadadadada

Vespatang
70

When this album is good, it's great. 'Golden Gal' and 'Floridada' are exemplars of the techniques they use on this LP and are joyful experiences to listen to.

However, on other tracks, even when the song writing is solid, those same techniques become grating and begin to feel more like gimmicks.

Another interesting album from Animal Collective nonetheless.

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Track List

1Floridada
4:05
85
2Hocus Pocus
3:16
69
3Vertical
4:14
71
4Lying in the Grass
3:34
65
5The Burglars
2:43
71
6Natural Selection
2:41
63
7Bagels in Kiev
2:48
67
8On Delay
3:48
69
9Spilling Guts
1:58
61
10Summing the Wretch
3:08
58
11Golden Gal
4:41
79
12Recycling
4:06
64
Total Length: 41 minutes

Year End Lists

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Added on: November 30, 2015