How do you feels?
Animal Collective
Feels
(Fat Cat)
Much to the chagrin of the indie elite, their pet bands are forced to more accessibly contextualize their work to find out where they stand.
Animal Collective’s last effort, Sung Tongs, was a giddy tour through a park seemingly bounded by an elastic belt, uncomfortably (though naturally) stretching and contracting. It didn’t stick with me, personally, until after seeing them open for the excruciatingly indulgent Black Dice, teaching me just how many limits AC do establish for themselves.
Aided now by the prominence of The Arcade Fire, with whom they share a debt to Talking Heads, Feels structures itself unconventionally with the underwater “Flesh Canoe,” Walkmen-ish “Grass” (whose “and I don’t make particular plans cause they don’t matter/if you keep on fooling in bed with my sleeping patterns” would be great if it were self-referential), and E6y “The Purple Bottle.” Kicking of with “Bees,” the final two-thirds melt into a jelly that temporarily congeals with clicking drumsticks in “Banshee Beat” and “Loch Raven” before the explosive reprise, “Turn Into Something.”
It’s not AC at their peak, but if there were ever a safe place to dive in, this Feels like it.
— Steve Forstneger
Appearing: February 25 at Logan Square Auditorium
