Animal Collective are the Peter Pans of indie-rock. Four avant-garde thirtysomethings from Baltimore, whose stage names betray their regard for childhood, Panda Bear, Avey Tare, Geologist and Deakin have made eight albums of head-spinning, outré pop, the best of which evoke the fleeting highs of prepubescence when life is endowed with endless possibilities.
Even by their own exuberant standards, though, AC's ninth album is a dizzying knees-up that makes most music, indie rock or otherwise, sound both bloodless and pathetically timid. In short, it is the record Flaming Lips might have made if, after Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Wayne Coyne and co had retained their wonderment and embraced Afropop, techno, dub and rave.
Certainly Merriweather Post Pavilion is both ecstatic and informed by ecstasy, judging by the explosive opener In the Flowers, wherein singer Avey Tare seeks oblivion ("If I could just leave my body for the night"), and the hymnal techno of My Girls. Even the rapturous Summertime Clothes, perhaps the most accessible track in the group's oeuvre, chiefly since the words for once aren't buried in the mix, is anchored by a seething electronic riff.
All of which makes Merriweather a companion piece to Panda Bear's 2007 album Person Pitch which, thanks to its cosmic sensibility, graced untold end of year polls. This is just as good.
