Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 15/01/08

Feeding time at the zoo is over, it seems, and the Panda won. Animal Collective emerge tonight one man/beast down, new album "Merriweather Post Pavilion" roaring towards the top of the 2009 polls just days into the January slog. Universal salivation has greeted their ninth record, the fresh, cohesive textures a sun-blasted revelation to the warring jungle of old. Much of this credit has gone to Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, who seems to have rewired the band's brain following 2007's "Person Pitch" solo album.

That record kicked-off with the space-gospel march of "Comfy In Nautica", its entrancing central motif of "Try to remember always to have a good time" ringing out from amid the random skree and daft shouting of his day job. Smoothing the rough edges and simplifying the message seems to be key to the deferred acclaim of Animal Collective, who appear this evening as a three-piece, Avey Tare and Geologist completing the line-up in the absence of Deakin. Naturally, they do not keep things simple.

That's not to say there's much to see, Avey Tare standing centrestage as his band members hunker down over keyboards, Geologist sporting a torch strapped to his head. While musically Animal Collective look to have realised their vision through the complex wizardry of samples, beats and loops, it is again with Panda's pure ideal that they strike gold early on. A dazzling "My Girls" updates the infinite liquid pulse of Frankie Knuckles' "Your Love" with sub bass and hymnal harmonies but the message is clear. "I don't mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status / I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls", he confesses.

To a backdrop of Technicolour strips of light, the spectre of ecstasy colours tonight's experience, which stretches out almost like one swollen whole exploring the parameters of "Merriweather…" It is a lot to take in, as a shower of synth interference punctuates "Daily Routine", the sinister push of "Summertime Clothes" settles into blissful hypnosis before bass punches and a closing chant offer release in "Guys Eyes" and a didgeridoo leads us into the slumbering power of "Lion In A Coma". But it is with a pair of old songs that Animal Collective really energise Brighton.

"Slippi" is dedicated "to the die-hards" and its frazzled thrash is like The Flaming Lips (a band who match their spirit and ambition) of 15 years ago. "Fireworks", meanwhile, with its underwater groove and martial drumming, is incredible, a crazed, strobe-infested outro powering straight into the spectacular psychedelic African rave carnival of "Brother Sport". These animals will surely be freed into the wild this summer. Look out for them in a field near you.

by Ben Gilbert