Animal Collective live review
This is a live review of The Animal Collective gig at St George’s Church Brighton in November 2007.
The Animal Collective are a group of 4 musicians from Brooklyn. When 2 or more of them get together to work on a project they call themselves the Animal Collective. One of them, Panda Bear, has also released a superb solo effort. They are now on their 7th album and play Brighton in support of this release.
Tonight and for the majority of this tour we get three members of the band. Panda Bear and Geologist stand behind 2 large tables covered with electronic wizardry and Avery Tare stands between alternating between playing percussion, guitar, keyboards and singing, all the time rocking and lurching about like someone let out on day release for the very first time.
The music the Animal Collective make is very hard to categorise, sometimes called freak folk, noise, indie rock, dance, lets just say its varied! Tonight the band starts off by playing tracks from their new album, which translates very well live, alongside tracks from their older albums. These are played pretty much as heard on the album, with each track blended into the next. Considering this is a church the sound is huge, amps cranked up to almost distortion, blazing white lights firing from the back of the stage to blind and dazzle the crowd, pulsating noise with Avery Tares hellish screams firing into the midsts of the acoustically brilliant building. Heres one moment from their first song.
This is nothing however compared to the second half, when they seemingly abandon song structures for a free form psychedelic freak out, turning them from a pop band into a drugged up Underworld, recreating the 90’s rave right inside a Brighton church, the crowd enters a trance like state, I literally couldn’t think. then suddenly, nothing. The Animal Collective have reached such levels of musical insanity that they’ve blown the power supply.
After 10mins the band restart, some of their power they built up is sadly lost now however and the remainder of the the gig whilst good begins to make me think perhaps enough is enough. Too much psychadelic freakey can make one feel a little bit sick.
Other views
Most people I knew who went to the gig loved the gig, but on leaving the venue there were a few murmurs of discontent. Some people who had been been brought along by friends didn’t ‘get’ the band, and found it to be a noisy nonsense.
Animal Collective Albums
Click on any images to buy the albums.
Sung Tongs, a friend tells me its one of The Animal Collective’s best, I’ve yet to hear it. According to popmatters Sung Tongs is an inch more sublime than anything they’ve done previously, with more phenomenal use of their manic choir of Motown vocals, less scattered, clique-ish dissonance, and more sideshow bubblegum-pop freaking out on god-knows-what powerful substance’.
Feels is my favourite Animal Collective album, a glorious and subtle piece of work with many tracks building up from nothing to work their way into you subconsciousness. Sylus Magazine say ‘Feels is a near-stunning album’.
Strawberry Jam is the latest release by the band and one of their most accessible, based around songs rather than sounds, and with a strong emphasis on lyrical content. Personally I find the vocals a bit too much at times, and prefer their earlier work. Most reviews find this their strongest release yet however, Drowned In Sound gave the album full marks.
Both Feels and Sung Tongs were given average ratings of 80% – 90% by metacritic, who average reviews from a large number of sources.
Music Videos
Peacebone
Fireworks
Who could win a rabbit
leaf House
Live footage
St Georges Church
More on The Animal Collective
Listen to a full length Animal Collective gig over at NPR Live concert series.
The Animal Collectives official website contains very little, tour dates and a video, but more is promised.
The Animal Collective myspace lets you sample tracks and gives you the usual gubbins.
More interesting is the Animal Collective lyric wiki which contains transcripts of Animal Collective’s often incomprehensible lyrics. My favourite line being ‘Hop the fence, leave the street and wet your feet to find the swimming pool’ from the brilliant Banshee Beat.
To chat about the band check out the forum Collected Animals, it seems quite lively and also has a huge lyrics thread.
For more gigs in Brighton be sure to visit our Brighton gig listings page.
The bbc have a page with live videos, an interview and track.
Oh yeah and…never forget – waterboarding is torture.
