Animal Collective - Water Curses

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

4...according to our Phil on Thu 01 May, 2008.

Here's the new Animal Collective single we almost didn't get but it's OK cos we did. Panic over like... Anyway 'Water Curses' is their new EP with 4 tracks on. Not any tracks either.... 4 brand new tracks of their mad skew whiff take on pop music. They still make a fantastic racket you'll be pleased to know. The EP is essentially hyperactive pop... they sound like they've been injected with 70's style orange juice (the ones with all the additives in which got banned.... I'd go for days without sleeping...). They've totally cornered the market on bonkers Beach Boys influenced music, consequently you can hear the ole Panda Bear influence on here. Cracking 4 track EP which does more for me that Strawberry Jam ever did. Though I did have some damson jam the other week which was well tasty.

Containing four brand new tracks, ‘Water Curses’ is the first Animal Collective release since last year’s ‘Strawberry Jam’ album. ‘Water Curses’ sees the band’s capacity for re-imaging their constituent parts into evermore interesting and saturated shapes go up by a giddy notch. All four tracks have a more stripped down feel than their recent work.
Opener ‘Water Curses’ takes an unexpected rhythm and throws it up, down and sideways to produce the sound of a smile. A technique that Animal Collective are now in a position to call their own.
‘Street Flash’ is nearly seven minutes of spaced out hollers, electronics and lullabies that luxuriate in a chord sequence running through a delay that sounds like it’s made of honey. Threatening to explode but laying back on itself instead, the track is like a particularly lucid dream.
‘Cobwebs’ is equally languid. Weaving itself around a vocal that sounds like it’s imagining some new kind of space church for Al Green to conduct weddings in, until it slowly fades away into a sticky ether.
The EP’s final track takes the celestial feel into even more blissed-out states. ‘Seal Eyeing’ is the moment you realise watching vapour trails melt into the sky is not only the most constructive thing you can do, but the only real option that’s left.

Be the first to review this record. Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!