Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind (2009)

It’s interesting that they’ve released two well-received full-length albums over the past two years, and have also released two short EPs of songs that would probably have fit on either of those albums. Maybe there are some subtleties that I am not getting, or some aspect of their artistic vision that makes the first sentence of this paragraph incredibly stupid, but from what I’m hearing these are along the lines of their recent work. “Graze” has some pretty, echoing vocal harmonies over fluttering synth and what sounds like flute. It’s sunny, cheerful, a bit abstract, and very beautiful. In other words, it would have sounded great on the latter half of Merriweather Post Pavillion. “Bleeding” isolated their vocal harmonies, lending an echo to both voices, which sound like they are in conversation with each other over droning synths. Both tracks are similar in quality to the best they've released over the past couple of years.

I read the pitchfork review of this EP, anxious to find out what I’m missing. Were these songs not complete on time for MPP’s release in January? Did they simply not make the cut because something had to be cut and these were it? Were they artistically uncompatible? Certainly, these 27-minutes of music would have made MPP way too long and turned a perfectly satisfying album into a pleasant, yet complex, exhausting affair. Pitchfork was no help, as is the case 50% of the time. They launched into descriptions of Animal Collective’s perfect use of tension, their departure from typical hipster-approved indie stylistic choices. They did not know why these songs were isolated onto this EP, but indicated that they were written around the same time.

Anyway, the music here can be described with any adjective used to describe any of the last 4 Animal Collective albums. Of course it’s good. They’re a good band. They have so much going on, layered electronics, multitracked vocals, songs that seem to change direction at the drop of the hat, and others that shift subtly over five-plus minutes. And, they manage to make all of this sound good. The highlight isn’t their adventurousness, or their status as extremely influential and respected, it’s that this sounds really pretty. I know that’s a simplistic assessment, and one that most of their fans would turn their nose up at. But this EP stays interesting throughout and has a nice, dreamy, psychedelic sound that barely masks their pop sensibilities, which are part of what make them a good band. For the longest time, I resisted liking this band, but with MPP, I really couldn’t do that anymore, and this EP is almost as good.

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