Review Summary: Do You See The Words?
When listening to an Animal Collective album, the words “dreamy” or “trippy” may be tossed around a bit much. In most cases, you’d think said listeners came across an inevitable frying of neurons after oh so many a trip (whether this was caused by the music or random hallucinogen ‘x’ is questionable), but when describing the work of such an idiosyncratic and often experimental indie pop group, its probably acceptable to come up short on adjectives worthy of their creativity. While it might be difficult to pin a single album as their best work, Feels is personally my favorite synthesis of Animal Collectives daringly original dream-pop, noise, and frequently droning sound. If not for the beautiful songwriting and creative instrumentation, this album is perfect for the captivation it possess’ throughout, until the final piano rolls fade in “Turn Into Something”. Blast my corniness please, but this album Feels amazing.
The album opens with, “Did You See The Words”; over five minutes of unorthodox pop music that blends eerie whispers and joyful bursts of youthful infatuation quite well. The track begins with a wobbly guitar line and sounds of children giggling, uncertain of where it will go next. This is soon met with light tapping percussion and trebly piano chords as it smoothes out into Avey Tare’s whispering verse. The blissful intro is momentarily contrasted with the lyrics “The words cut open, your poor intestines cant deny when the inky periods drip from your mailbox and blood flies dip and glide”. Not exactly your typical pop lyrics, but Avey’s not exactly your typical pop musician either. The odd structure and dynamics of this song work surprisingly well, and the uplifting instrumentation make this a definite highlight. This solid opener is followed up by the single, “Grass”, which is possibly even weirder than the previous track. Despite the more characteristic pop song duration of three minutes, this track appears to have more noise influence than the others. This is best seen in the shouting “POW POW POW” section and the almost exclusive use of toms and cymbals in the percussion. That’s not to say that this is a noise track by any means. The pop sensibility is still easily seen in the constantly flowing melodies and dreamy (damn it, there it is again) introduction. This one’s another highlight for sure.
After two great catchy tracks, Animal Collective takes a breather with the relaxing and lovingly silly “Flesh Canoe”. The lyrics are intimate and portrayed beautifully with Avey’s soft vocals. While this track doesn’t offer much musically aside from a few guitar swells and ambient noise, it’s kind of a nice break with good lyrics and vocals keeping it from being mistaken as filler. “Purple Bottle” brings back the upbeat mood from “Grass” with more great percussion and bouncy vocals. The track almost reminds me of my energetic 8 year-old neighbor asking to play catch with him. Similar memories are likely to be evoked by this hyperactive Sing-Along-On-Steroids. “Bees” is a softer and slower ballad, placed perfectly again between more climactic moments on the album. There’s a lot going on in this track (make that all of the tracks), but the song is defined by the light harp strums and piano riffing accompanying droning vocals by Avey, that seem to come from a daydream of his.
The next song, “Banshee Beat”, ends the feelings of infatuated bliss that came before it with singing of shock at a relationship that just didn’t work out. Avey restrains himself to his uncomfortable whisper as he tries to figure out what must have gone wrong. After two minutes of quiet confusion, the song finally builds beyond its single note guitar line as the trance is not broken, but enhanced with metronomic tapping, eerie hissing noises, and another simple, but alternating guitar progression. The emotion that Avey keeps simmering for four and a half minutes finally bursts as he “finds the swimming pooOOOOOOOOOOOL”. The cathartic release is accentuated by Panda Bear’s crashing cymbal, and the remainder of the eight and a half minute epic is accompanied by Panda’s fittingly chaotic, but consistent background vocals. “Banshee Beat” is another highlight, and my favorite song on the album. The next song, “Daffy Duck”, finds our narrator in the aftermath of his breakdown, needing a laugh and some friendly encouragement to aid his broken heart. This one is similar to “Bees” and “Flesh Canoe” in that it could be looked over as filler, if one didn’t understand how this album is the journey of a smitten Avey Tare and his feelings from the beginning to the post-breakup stages of a naïve love affair. “Loch Raven” falls under this category of song as well, with the only lyrics being “I will not give up on you”, which pretty much speaks for itself. I actually think this is the best of the “softer” songs on the album as it features nice but simple drumming from Panda and a beautiful soundscape as well.
The album ends on “Turn Into Something” which picks up the pace a bit and finds our narrator at a party, where he meets his lover for the first time since they broke up, and they wind up finding that same spark for each other that they had back in the days of “Do You See The Words”. Despite the evident hope of mending their love and relationship, she warns him, “But don't miss me goodness because I rub away every time”. Ending perhaps as uncertainly as he began.
