Animal Collective gets weird(er) and more cerebral on its new album.
The first thing we hear on Animal Collective’s astonishing new record is a distorted, extraterrestrial voice that announces, “This. Is. The. News.” It’s a lofty bit of self-important psychobabble, especially when it comes in, hushed, before the opening song even begins. Yet once Centipede Hz’s 53 relentless minutes have ended, it will all make perfect sense: Love it or hate it, this is what the future probably sounds like.
It becomes quickly apparent, though, that the direction suggested on 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion — Brian Wilson pop doused in shimmering electronics and pastoral harmonies — is all but abandoned here. If its last full-length was Pet Sounds armed with synths and then played through a Vornado fan, Centipede Hz is Merzbow at the Enchanted Tiki Room: primal, angry, juvenile and oh so dirty. Did I mention how dirty Centipede Hz is?
To say it fires its unbridled scuzz on all drug-addled synapses is an understatement. Listen closely as synths gurgle and burp like hot bubbles in a saucepan, tribal drums pound with irate, animalistic intensity and voices shriek and howl and fight for relevance in a stampede of overwhelming noise. What once was beautiful about Animal Collective’s sound has now been contorted and twisted into something inordinately ugly, a mutated color wheel plastered on a stucco wall of chipping whitewash.
And there’s truly an epic amount to linger on here: the somber, wandering robot noises that glide in and out of time on “New Town Burnout,” Avey Tare’s screechy order to “get mad” on “Today’s Supernatural,” the galloping coconut percussion phrases on “Wide Eyed,” the staccato “Sloop John B” guitar on “Rosie Oh.” This is intellectual art at its best.
However, Centipede Hz may alienate some listeners with its aesthetic hardwiring. This is not beautiful music designed to spur visceral emotions. It’s strictly brain fodder — dark and soulless and pretty unapproachable. While it may be difficult to love in the same, consoling sense as Merriweather Post Pavilion, it’s still an achievement that deserves our admiration.
Take the track “Monkey Riches.” It’s probably the most eccentric thing Animal Collective has written since 2003’s Here Comes The Indian or maybe even 2002’s Hollinndagain. It could also be the best piece of music it has made. A few minutes into the song, riding a demented Bollywood synth loop, Avey Tare screeches with unfiltered ugliness, “I don’t want to knock you down.”
For a moment in our normally monochromatic lives, we’ve been bum-rushed by something grand and unsettling. It doesn’t touch our heart, but it spirals in our head and stimulates our senses. We’ve been knocked down, splashed with hot water and thrust into a trance. This is our brain on breathtaking overload. This. Is. The. News.
essner@umdbk.com
