Animal Collective’s music, but also Animal Collective as an entity, has always been about play. But its regression to a more simple, child-like state is also a form of subversion against an increasingly globalised and commoditised dreariness of modern existence. Animal Collective don’t just want you to see how weird they are, they also want to help you to see just how weird everything else is as well. Progression seems an inapt term to refer to Animal Collective. The band has never had a fixed point from which progress could be measured against, often alternating between the four members depending on who is available. Instead Animal Collective morphs and it always feels like the fundamental change in the chemistry of the band is the result of outside forces acting upon them.

But it is starting to feel like maybe playtime is over. All of the group’s members are approaching forty, have children and are displaced around different cities.

Painting With could be considered Animal Collective growing up. It is their most considered and laboured sounding effort to date and their first album written entirely in the studio. It’s also their shortest record, with many of the songs coming in at under four minutes.

This is Animal Collective however and the compression of time hasn’t resulted in fewer ideas, instead they just end up cramming everything into smaller spaces.

Sometimes it can feel a bit of a mess, like the splurge of paint in a Jackson Pollock painting, but slowly the record reveals itself to contain astounding intricacy and detail. ‘Floridada’ initially sounds as antagonistically obtuse as the art movement the title is a pun on, but it's not long before it's firmly embedded into your skull with its bizarre sing-song melody.

The vocals in particular are laid out with dizzying detail. Avery Tare and Panda Bear create a delay effect between their two voices on songs such as ‘Hocus Pocus’ by singing the same melody but just a fraction of a beat separating them. A swirling disorientation is the result, meaning the pop sensibilities are never allowed to settle, and are left in a state of constant flux. The vocals are right at the front of the mix, just as pop music warrants, but it’s difficult to understand their words more than ever. When they are intelligible, they’re approaching topical subjects such as ‘Recycling’ in a typically round about way.

This is easily the busiest and most dense the group have ever sounded and at times it can induce a kind of sonic exhaustion at having to try to process so much information in each song. On initial listens I found myself getting fatigued and having to take breaks, as if I had absorbed as much as was physically possible. Another word some might choose for this experience is irritating. But this depends largely on whether or not the very idea of Animal Collective is irritating to you. The absurdity and silliness can be grating to some, but to me this comes across as simply being uncomfortable with the total lack of self-consciousness in the group's music.

‘Golden Gal’ remains one of the strongest moments on the album because of its directness, and involves the least amount of mediation between your ears and you brains as you try and figure out what exactly it is you are listening to. They’ve never given it to us as straightforward as they have here: with its soaring harmonies ‘Golden Gals’ is unabashedly a pop song of the highest pedigree, and a reminder that to do it properly, and to do it well, is an art form. It doesn’t always reach these dizzying heights and some of the tracks such as ‘Bagels in Kiev’ don’t ever give the pay off your concentration and commitment to them demands.

A bit like how on the album cover the band's faces merge into fractal shapes. The line between organic and electronic is constantly being blurred on Painting With. Voices such as the croaky opening of ‘Vertical’ often sound like the product of synthesisers and the relentless squelching and bubbling synths do their best to try and trick you they’re the product of vocal chords. On ‘Hocus Pocus’ the pitch of the voice is manipulated, so as to sound like a robot being unplugged or powering down, while on ‘Recycling’ the melody is broken up so that each syllable sounds like a separate note being played on a keyboard. On ‘Lying on the Grass’ the synth lets out a pleasant sigh, like it's taking off its shoes and feeling the soil between its toes.

I’m not the first person to take a leap and make the connection that this was recorded at the same place as arguably the greatest pop album of all time: The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Both albums also have an obsession with complex and unconventional harmonies and trying to re-invent what popular music can be.

But in all honestly this isn’t, and never could be Animal Collective’s Pet Sounds; that album was significant in more ways than just its content. A bubble-gum pop band coming out with an album that demanded to be taken seriously as a piece of art shifted the entire course of popular music. But both share the ambition of elevating pop to a lofty ideal. Animal Collective are still probably a bit too odd for their own good in order to pull it off convincingly, and Painting With will never make such an impact on the broader culture. But it is an admirable effort either way.
Louis Ormesher

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