[rayword45]

Day 422: Meeting Of The Forest by Animal Collective

My history with Animal Collective is as follows.

1. Discover Sung Tongs in 9th grade, hate it and dismiss them (I should've stopped here?)
2. Keep trying for some reason, and I don't know what
3. I'm a fan as of mid-10th grade, Strawberry Jam is a 5-star album right now. Keep in mind this was after Centipede Hz had been released.
4. Burn out from listening to them way too damn much, and also realizing that a good fuckin chunk of their songs have next-to-zero replay value
5. Painting With comes out and why should I care about these guys? Their love songs are still jams though (especially Bluish and The Purple Bottle) and they have a few decent things here and there.

Hence why I'm listening to this so damn late. This is the first release they've done without Panda Bear who I've now long thought of as the most talented member of the group by a wide margin, let's see how they hang without him or Deakin but really... who cares about Deakin? Who still cares about this band? (hehheh I'm in college hehheh)

Damn this took forever to get started. Reminds me kinda of Mount Eerie in that folk album-y way, only that was a much better album thus far, and that pales in comparison to A Crow Looked At Me. The first real song, a meandering acoustic affair, was pretty after a long ambient intro, but eventually turned really boring, like the shitty drone parts of Sung Tongs or the waste of time that is Campfire Songs. The second track incorporates some electronics at first, and then turns into the exact same thing. This was voted best release of theirs in 8 years over Centipede Hz (which at least had a few catchy pop tunes)? What the fuck? Is it because of how it was recorded?

Best Track: Anaconda Opportunity
Rating: 5/10