Animal Collective – Water Curses EP

9 December 2008, Allan @ 5:30 pm Animal Collective Water Curses EP

I saw Animal Collective at Rogers Picnic this year without knowing many of their songs, having been more experienced more with Panda Bear. I tried to listen to some Animal Collective tracks but I would end up giving up due to going insane (some of their arrangements cause my head to explode…not that its bad, just unlistenable).

I summed up the courage to check out just 4 tracks especially after Christian recommended the song Seal Eyeing as one of his top ten of the year. While I realize this doesn’t mean much, I can vouch that Christian likes some good music and it was definitely worth checking out.

Water Curses was surprising, while most point to other works as being significant, I liked this little record right off the bat. Specifically the longest track, Street Flash will starts off slow(just like how I like) and adds layer after layer with excellent vocals from Avey Tare (just found he’s married to former lead singer of mum). Of course one could not talk about Animal Collective without the extra sound effects and experimentation. You get a shriek randomly throughout the song in addition to some noise etc. I guess you can’t really say enough about how much is within an Animal Collective track.

I think one downside that I personally dislike about a lot of experimental bands is the use of experimentation for the sake of it. In orders word sometimes overdoing it and missing the mark. On this EP they do a ton of it and it actually works quite well, but would it work for you or me? That’s really hit or miss.

It’s clear that I’m coming to accept Animal Collective’s talent a bit but sometimes I want a little more or a little less. With Seal Eyeing is a slowly developing song that feels like it has its moment right near the end of the track but I feel it didn’t go full circle like it did with Street Flash.

For an EP, I do feel enticed to check out their discography as I am left impressed but still not overly impressed.

I don’t like giving EP’s high score (it’s very different from a full length) unless I have to. It’s a pretty good LP that divulges well into noise/experimental music but while I like bits and pieces of Water Curses and Cobwebs, I don’t really really like those songs as a whole.

AWmusic