Making You Work For Your Music
Looking for a musical challenge? Had enough of those straightforward tracks where the meaning leaps out of every word and the melody is stapled around a hook that wedges itself in your mind for eternity? Then fear not, Maryland four piece the Animal Collective are here to inject some weird and wonderful sounds into your listening experience, making sure you have to work at your listening skills and pretty much making a eclectic sound that has no evident coherency but yet is intriguingly appealing. Sure, it may not be a pop hit but with band members going by the names of Panda Bear and Geologist (surely not the names their mothers lovingly bestowed on them) how can you not help but fall in love with their strange music creations?
Half hippy howls half psychedelic mind trip, Strawberry Jam manages to take every sound known to man, bung it in a blender before pressing the on switch and standing back to watch the commotion. Nothing seems to go together in sync, nothing indeed makes a ton of sense but strangely that makes no difference at all. Apparently appealing more to the mainstream with this album, Strawberry Jam even manages to mix in a dark undercurrent to most tracks, swirling the on the surface chirpiness with an almost sardonic twist. 'Unsolved Mysteries' brandishes a darkly deranged fairground accompaniment that sounds like it should belong to a menacingly children's show, all sweetness and light but with an evil behind it. And it's this disturbing sweetness that continues throughout the album as chaotic sounds collide with howling vocals that yelp and wail alongside beats that seem to belong to entirely different track.
'Chores', perhaps not a track to toil away at the housework to, at one point sounds like it has gotten stuck as Animal Collective's tribal meets Disneyland energetic harmonies seem in need of a nudge to get them back on track. Its fun and non conformist and will have you starching your head in disbelief as you tap your feet to the beat. Not everything in the world of the Animal Collective is cheery though with 'For Reverend Green' even straying into the territory of the normal as the band adopt a serious stance with a track that you'd normally associate with the Arcade Fire.
Strawberry Jam is unlike any other album you'll hear. Weirdly wonderful with a sprinkle of darkness and a splash of beauty the Animal Collective cater for all. At first it will blow your mind but with perseverance comes rewards as the fused energy of 'Chores' and the emotional splendour of 'For Reverend Green' escape from the speakers making Strawberry Jam worth all the work, after all a little bit of work never hurt anyone!