Why I'm Done with Animal Collective

I first heard Animal Collective a little later than everyone else had already picked up on them--2005, after the release of Sung Tongs. Ah, the heady year of 2005. The recent emergence of Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Vetiver, folks like that, the rekindling of a love affair with the possibilities of the acoustic guitar (or harp, in Newsom's case) in popular music, and the off-kilter folky voices and weird songs about the weather and the cosmos. I saw Animal Collective as part of that aesthetic, DIY guys messing with guitars and percussion and songs with slippery lyrics sung in high harmonies though occasionally in low throat moans, a sort of postmodern Beach Boys a la Beach Boys Party! if the Beach Boys played droning ragas with tape loops.

Since then, I've acquired each of Animal Collective's successive LP's: Feels, with its cover inspired by Henry Darger and occasionally transcendent songs ("Have You Seen the Words" got me through the 2007 Honolulu Marathon), Strawberry Jam, a work I can only describe as irritating despite my repeated efforts to get to the bottom of it, Merriweather Post Pavilion, in which the cacaphony from the previous album was dampened in order for beats, dance, and melody to take precedence--though there were still the one/two chord drone numbers the band seems overly preoccupied with.

I imagined Centipede Hz as an extension of Merriweather, at least in terms of a concern with real songs, not just pieces of tape overlaid with jarring electronic effects and high whiny vocals that are especially offensive because of their senselessness. I also imagined that more of Panda Bear's solo influence would be evident, either in clever, minimalist samples (as comprised his 2007 album Person Pitch) or something live, electric and sad like his 2011 release Tomboy. Imagining these kinds of things is mostly unhelpful, and a big waste of time.

Animal Collective has indeed returned to form in Centipede Hz, though it is the form of their lesser work. The tunelessness, the godforsaken noise, this unnecessary bombast and the overcooked vocals are reminiscent most of Strawberry Jam. Except for perhaps the trifle "Rosie Oh," there is nothing pleasant to hear on this record, nothing you'd want to share with a friend or allow to be the soundtrack for a putting on of the moves. There are no songs, period, just some titles and a lot of gibberish between them.