Animal Collective - "Fall Be Kind"

Fall Be Kind finishes what Merriweather Post Pavilion started in 2009: a jagged shift in the potential of music-making and visual art; a challenge to the way we hear and see music. Fall Be Kind is the pleasant nightcap to a marvelous year in which Animal Collective collectively wrought havoc on the systems already in place for pop music sensibility. From now on, we will evaluate music differently and think more critically about what it can be. Even those people who reject Animal Collective as flamboyantly bizarre will scratch their heads and try to figure out why they don't like this band. Because if you give them just the slightest chance, they will dig their gentle paws into your brain and rewire everything.

There are only 5 songs here--it's an EP after all--but each one represents a unique afterthought, or some type of leftover fume still smoldering from last winter's monumental release. "On a Highway" reeks of that meandering in-the-clouds-stuff that Animal Collective have pretty much patented in terms of music. "Graze" and "What Would I Want? Sky" could stand up to--or maybe even exceed--anything on MPP. They straddle that line between super serious and jovial; they are just as much solid oak desk as they are warm friendly couch. None of these songs would quite belong on MPP, but there's no denying the influence, nor the nagging feeling that the band is gearing up for something else.