Animal Crack Box is a limited edition box set featuring carefully sequenced, unreleased and live material from Animal Collective’s early and most experimental days, ranging from droning noise experiments to surreal, Campfire Songs-style acoustic segments – this is a far cry from the successful and (relatively) accessible band of recent years, and it offers us an interesting look at their rather dramatic musical evolution, but be warned: only die hard fans need listen.

7 / 10

Catsup Plate
May 11, 2009

Animal Collective have taken the melodic tones of previous effort Strawberry Jam, the sunny, beachy colors of Panda Bear’s ethereal solo album, and the liquid sounds of 2008′s Water Curses EP and built them into something more accessible, dizzying, and entertaining than any album they’ve ever made before – a captivating hour of shimmering synths, pounding beats, gorgeous harmonizing, and (gasp!) amazingly catchy hooks.

Leak Freaks: Unlike nearly every other album that comes out these days, Merriweather Post Pavilion failed to leak months in advance of it’s January 09 release date. As anticipation drew to a fevered pitch, tracks “Brother Sport” and “My Girls” leaked and Bradford Cox of Deerhunter told Animal Collective fans to “pick up instruments and make your own version of what you would want it to sound like.” The album finally leaked on December 25, providing a true Christmas miracle to hipsters the world over.

Open up your, open up your, open up your throat: One of the most startling factors about Merriweather Post Pavilion is just how damn catchy some of these songs are. If one goes back just a few albums in Animal Collective’s catalogue, they’ll find wandering, incohesive sound experiments that mostly just float from place to place. Album highlight “Summertime Clothes” has distinct verses and a lovely, catchy chorus, something quite new for the band behind it.

Grade: 9.5 / 10

Domino
January 6, 2009