Animals Collective - Painting With

I don’t think anyone really knows what goes into an Animal Collective record, but if their newest LP Painting With is anything to go by, barbershop quartets, dinosaur noises and hallucinogenics are probably a good guess. From the bouncy campfire anthem FloriDada to the comedic psych-pop Golden Gal, Painting With is a trip down the rabbit hole, a ludicrous adventure filled with fuzzes, buzzes and other nuggets of aural nonsense. The Burglars stands out as the lull of the record, mixing downbeat synthesizers with trippy percussion loops, as does On Delay, the cleanest sounding song of the album. Spilling Guts packs a punch with its upbeat pop spikes, not wholly different from the likes of MGMT and almost surely inspired by Frankie Knuckles. Closing the madness, Recycling throbs and globs like a chemical reaction gone wrong before fading out amongst twinkles and other shimmery delights. On the whole, it’s not clear what the message of this record is. You can’t really dance or sing along to it either. But if eccentricity is what you’re into then I can tell you for sure that Painting With is the one for you.