Life > October 4, 2007

By Colin Gibbons | Contributing writer

Prominent “experimental folk” band Animal Collective is currently riding a swell of critical praise for its most recent album Strawberry Jam, which recently debuted at No. 5 on the Independent charts.

Strawberry Jam features more prominent vocals and fewer of the wild screeches and howls for which the band is known than previous albums, but the endless array of sounds, ranging from chainsaws to birdcalls, are more richly arranged than ever.

The increased accessibility of the new album has added multitudes of new followers to the band’s dedicated fan base, and helped draw a sellout crowd to Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro last Thursday.

The show opened with Tickley Feather, whose haunting Hope Sandoval-like voice drifting over thick loops of fuzz and pounding jungle beats to create a fitting atmosphere for the headliners.

Animal Collective’s set started off on an unexpected note, with a new, unrecorded song and only three of the band’s four most frequent members on stage.

Deakin (Josh Dibb) never did appear, but the three-man team of Avey Tare (David Portner), the lead vocalist who provides the squawks, howls and screeches, Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), who savagely pounded his snare from start to finish and Geologist (Brian Weitz), incessantly dancing behind a mountain of loopers and effects processors, were more than capable of filling out the songs on their own.

The band played five of the nine songs off of Strawberry Jam. “Derek” and “Chores,” both sung by Panda Bear, were relatively true to the album versions, with clear vocal melodies reminiscent of those found on Panda’s excellent solo album Person Pitch, released earlier this year.

Avey Tare’s songs were much more adventurous and unpredictable.

“Unsolved Mysteries” and “Peacebone” both began with whimsical extended introductions, while the new single “Fireworks” featured an extra few verses stuck in the middle, complete with a different tempo and melody.

The trio did not play a single song off of their previous album, Feels, instead drawing heavily from new, unrecorded material. Many of the new songs were slow droning pieces of the sort that were characteristic of Feels but mostly absent from Strawberry Jam.

Although it was not overly apparent, the band struggled with technical problems throughout the first half of the set, as the soundman, along with most of the audience, failed to catch Avey Tare’s frequently repeated, echo-laden chants of “feedback in the monitors.”

When the band took their first break 45 minutes into the set, they seemed to resolve the monitor issues, and the rest of the show went smoothly.

Animal Collective has a brilliantly developed concept of what a set should be, and besides the short break to fix the monitors, there was no further lull in the noise, with songs drifting in and out of the careful racket in seamless succession. After nearly two hours, the set concluded with a brilliant and frantic “Who Could Win a Rabbit,” a favorite from the band’s breakout album Sung Tongs.

The crowd was less wild than could be expected at an Animal Collective show, but this was probably due more to the seizure- inducing light show than anything else. 

The band’s current light display is certainly the most impressive to hit the indie scene since the Ferris Wheel of epilepsy featured on Deerhoof’s latest tour, but perhaps not impressive enough to justify the massive headache, dizziness and acid-like retinal confusion that it inflicted.

Whether hypnotized by the lights or the music, most of the crowd stumbled out of the venue dazed and smiling.

If you missed the show, but are eager to hear what Animal Collective sounds like live, you can listen to their recent show at the 9:30 club in D.C. online at NPR.org.

If you’ve never heard Animal Collective before, but are willing to expand your musical taste, Strawberry Jam is a great place to start.