“Lots of heroes out there thinking ’bout it,
But minutes of their lives are ticking down,
And bottles full of love are drunken by,
A tricky, trite, and thirsty, hungry bird.”

Partially recorded at the same studio where Brian Wilson created pop masterpiece Pet Sounds and the acid trip The Smile Sessions, Animal Collective (once again sans Deakin) return to Merriweather Post Pavilion form with a breezy album of psychedelic pop songs. Painting With strips away much of the gaudy sheen that made Centipede Hz a difficult listen, and for the first time in the band’s career an album feels a bit like a retread of old ideas (which is not to fault it at all; some bands spend their entire career barely changing from their initial formula).

What’s funny is that the album was treated pretty harshly by critics despite its stylistic similarity to the monumental Merriweather which was universally praised and vied for “Album of the Decade” status. Around the turn of the decade, though, there was a notable shift in hipster land where it became acceptable to like a bunch of trash mainstream music that they used to pretend not to listen to;¹ so perhaps complex pop just isn’t palatable to that crowd anymore—their senses have been dulled by all the junk they’ve been filling their earholes with (I kid, I kid). Anyway the regression to a previous form seemed to catch flak from diehards, and it didn’t catch on with a broader audience the way MPP did.

To be fair, it’s not a carbon copy of MPP, but I think it is pretty clear that the band enjoyed the success of it, and took the criticism of Centipede Hz to heart. A notable difference between Painting With and earlier albums is that the songs are all “short,” with each one clocking in at under five minutes. This naturally leads to a lack of repetitious and drawn out drone or ambient passages. It’s just pop songs (in the warped Animal Collective definition of the term). There is also much less reverb than on previous releases, giving the sound a bit more crispness and clarity than we’re used to with these guys.

Throughout the record, they excessively utilize a musical technique called hocketing, which essentially means that a melody is shared between multiple voices or instruments. It is very apparent on ‘Lying in the Grass’, ‘Spilling Guts’, ‘Summing the Wretch’, and ‘Recycling’. At times it feels like the tracks exist specifically for that, but when it is used tastefully it works well. The influential genres here are quite diverse—sunshine pop, progressive rock, techno-pop, folk—but all of them get the same kind of treatment, resulting in a single continuous mood throughout the majority of the tracks. Sometimes the results are annoying but quite often the fun that they have making the music is infectious and you can’t help but bobbing your head along to the concoction of electronic soup that they’ve whipped up.

It’s a pretty tame effort from the guys who made some of the most accessible experimental music of the 2000s. At this point, putting out something that is not intentionally pushing boundaries or sensibilities feels like an innovation in itself, albeit one that seems to say they may not have another trick up their sleeve.

Favorite Tracks: Vertical; Bagels In Kiev; Golden Gal.

1. To be clear, people can like whatever they want, including trash mainstream music. That doesn’t mean it’s not trash mainstream music (and yes, there is mainstream music that is not trash).

Sources:
“Animal Collective finish recording new album in iconic Pet Sounds studio”. FACT Magazine. 15 July 2015.