Comments on: Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

By: Demob Happy

Demob Happy — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:58:38 +0000

Just got mine. Dense, rushing, volatile: they really are in a place of their own. I liked the band before, but they have never done anything this consistent – always found the quality of their albums a bit patchy (in retrospect ‘Feels’ is my favourite) but there was always the occasional track to completely blow your mind. But it’s going to take me a number of listens to get my head round Merriweather, as its so expansive, so detailed and rather relentless.

By: Andy Johnson

Andy Johnson — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:43:07 +0000

Now you mention that sentence Adam, I spent a while trying to decide whether to italicise “neccesarily”… I didn’t in the end, but in my conclusions I’ve hopefully signalled that I think a lot of people will. The relatively high average length of the songs is a reason why I personally don’t really repeat it much.

It *is* a fantastic album though. I think it’s fair to say we’ll still be talking about this, and especially tracks like the brilliant “My Girls”, when we wrap up 2009.

By: RichT

RichT — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:07:27 +0000

i agree with adam. im not even a fan of the band per se, and ive had it on repeat for weeks. bloody fantastic.

nice review though andy, good to hear your take on it.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:47:56 +0000

Severely under-rated I think, Andy. One of the decade’s classics, never mind the year. I fucking *love* this record already, and it’s not often I’ve fallen for an album so hard and so fast. Also, I totally disagree with “isn’t neccesarily the kind of album you’ll be listening to on repeat” – I think, even for those that don’t like it so much, it’s exactly the “kind” of album that demands replaying and repeating. Even if you dislike it, it has that hypnotic quality that brings listeners back in.