By immersing himself even deeper into the world of dub music and its equally minimalist and maximalist tones and tropes, Grim Reaper sounds stronger than anything he's accomplished so far.
It may well be his best yet. It’s certainly his most interesting.
More streamlined than Person Pitch and more rhythmically robust than Tomboy, Grim Reaper is Panda Bear’s toughest, grimiest, and funkiest album to date.
Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper is steeped in melody and emotion, and challenges the listener without alienating them. Mark this another consistently good entry into Lennox’s catalogue.
From its bubbling textures to its soaring vocals to its skittering beats to its careful sampling/instrumentation, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper serves as a fine reminder that Lennox remains one of music's most gifted melodists.
Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper is not the private masterpiece that Person Pitch turned out to be, but it might be the final triumphant salute to an unforgettable chapter in Lennox's career.
Across the album's 13 tracks, Lennox combines the sample-based psychedelia of his past efforts with stark songcraft and swampy electronic backdrops that reach back to Animal Collective's masterwork, Merriweather Post Pavilion.
Grim Reaper is Panda Bear’s most aggressively electronic work to date, full of clattering rhythms and corroded keyboards, no computer-derived sound or structure permitted to masquerade as anything other than what it is. But this makes it, oddly, his most embodied work, too.
There’s nothing radically new here, which means it doesn’t have the same jolting appeal as Person Pitch. But rather than repeat himself, Lennox has successfully honed his sound.
Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, Lennox's fifth studio LP, is his most direct and accessible statement yet: There are no austere synth drones, no waterlogged pseudo-homages to Super Mario 64.
One of the songwriter’s most overtly gorgeous works, it finds Panda Bear easing into new ground while maintaining his near effortless melodic touch.
Whereas 2011's Tomboy sought to clear up some of Person Pitch's alluring sonic murk, Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper is an audaciously maximalist assault on the senses.
His work is possibly the most interesting as a collision point between hippy music old and new.
This is a more colourful record than its predecessor, but it’s troubled, too.
On first listen, the album as a whole seems repetitious - there aren't any 12-minute odysseys like on breakout album Person Pitch - but its diversity reveals itself with multiple listens.
Lennox has a remarkable ability to craft wonderful vocal hooks from the air and build them like blocks of Lego, sustaining the stunning spatial awareness elsewhere.
His fifth solo effort ‘Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper’ guzzles down 90s hip-hop inspired drum programming, vocal auto-tune and cyclical loops. The result is more disconcerting than anything Lennox has done before.
Grim Reaper is an unedited adventure of blossoming soundscapes, vision-blurring, dissonant melodies, and cheerful robot dance numbers.
Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper is often blissful electronica for both the heart and the brain.
Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper rides high on his proven strengths, but doesn’t exactly explore new territory.
After the gloomy, monochromatic Tomboy, the catchy, blissed-out buoyancy of Grim Reaper is rather refreshing, showing Lennox staking out a middle ground between quirky abstraction and pop accessibility.
Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper can be a particularly infuriating listen since it wanders between moments of greatness and utter tedium. Lennox is a more capable songwriter when he shows some restraint and elegance, and yet he feels the need to return to those more jumbled moments that suffer from patchy results.
The whole effect is unsettling, with the saccharine-sweetness of Panda Bear we know being somehow corrupted, psychedelic in a disconcerting mind melting rather than flower-power way.
Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper doesn’t push boundaries so much as it delineates the contours of Lennox’s comfort zone.
Short Review
If you want a mix of Tame Impala type sounds mixed with some Animal Collective, this album is for you.
Favorite: Mr. Noah
Least Favorite: Sequential Circuits
Esse álbum trás uma sonoridade mais Animal Collective na minha opinião, ele é mais fácil de digerir que os trabalhos anteriores, e é muito bom o resultado final
Really weak synth works, basic loops, weak vocals, and tinker toy tunes that go absolutely nowhere.
Boring.
“panda bear meets the grim reaper”
sequential circuits - 7
mr noah - 8
davy jones’ locker - 7
crosswords - 7.5
butcher baker candlestick maker - 9
boys latin - 8.5
come to your senses - 7.5
topic of cancer - 6
shadow of the colossus - 1
lonely wanderer - 5
principe real - 8
selfish gene - 7
acid wash - 6.5
avg - 6.7
rounded - 6.5
1 | Sequential Circuits 3:36 | 71 |
2 | Mr Noah 4:13 | 86 |
3 | Davy Jones' Locker 0:35 | 59 |
4 | Crosswords 3:36 | 82 |
5 | Butcher Baker Candlestick Maker 3:07 | 80 |
6 | Boys Latin 4:12 | 78 |
7 | Come To Your Senses 7:23 | 83 |
8 | Tropic of Cancer 6:12 | 84 |
9 | Shadow of the Colossus 0:17 | 55 |
10 | Lonely Wanderer 4:19 | 77 |
11 | Principe Real 4:54 | 70 |
12 | Selfish Gene 5:05 | 71 |
13 | Acid Wash 3:42 | 69 |
#2 | / | Gorilla vs. Bear |
#12 | / | FLOOD |
#13 | / | Diffuser |
#20 | / | Time Out London |
#21 | / | Pretty Much Amazing |
#22 | / | Pitchfork |
#22 | / | Under the Radar |
#30 | / | Treble |
#45 | / | Uncut |
#48 | / | FACT Magazine |