Animal Collective: Centipede Hz Review

It's a mouth... I think

Album: Centipede Hz

Artist: Animal Collective

Genre: Experimental/Neopsychadelia 

       9.5/10

     Merriweather Post Pavilion was a great album.  I’ll admit that.  But the shitstorm that erupted from music blogs and websites surprised me.  I thought that it was a cool direction from the band, and a definite change in pace, but there were far less memorable moments than in Spirit They’ve Gone or Feels for me.  It wasn’t so much a disappointment as an album that just left me wanting more.  But I didn’t know what.  Then Centipede Hz leaked, and I finally understood: MPP was missing the “weird” factor.

     Centipede Hz is somewhat of a concept album, and it’s a fucking awesome idea.  For four weeks before Animal Collective, they would have a “radio broadcast” of different songs that inspired the writing and production of the record each week, put on by each member of the band.  In interviews with the band, we learned that there was a central idea to the record, that it was akin to an alien race hearing these radio transmissions and playing their own interpretations of it.  The result is a highly dense and fluid album that employs some crazy percussion, electronic wonkery, and some seriously insanely catchy hooks.

     “Moonjock” begins this LP with a robot tranmission countdown: “5432 1! 1! 1!” and some surprisingly heavy hits come in on the off beats.  Panda Bear brings ferocity behind the drum set, or his version of a drum set.  There’s a lot of dynamics on this track.  Distorted synths swell with a weird descending vocals, and the wonderful harmonies add a touch of softness to an other wise demented track.  The song ends with a solid 45 seconds of Geologist going crazy with samples before seamlessly transitioning into “Today’s Supernatural”, the lead single.  The most iconic moment lies in the opening line.  Avey Tare screams “COME ON LELELELELELELELELELET GOOOOOO” before jumping straight into a high energy, latin-influenced groove with many freak-out moments.  The chorus features an actual straight-up rock technique, coordinating hits between the drums, guitar, and synthesizer.  Avey’s lyrics are still weird, but some sort of point is evident on this track.  The song’s about how even ordinary day-to-day situations and things can seem giant and powerful and magical:  “Cause your own is the sweetest thing inside of you/And our home is bigger than a mountain view/You’ll find something you believe that you should do/Sometimes it won’t come so easy/But sometimes you gotta go get mad.”  The track flows into the sublte and quiet “Rosie Oh”.  Deakin’s guitar takes the helm, is this actual guitar picking I’m hearing?  The track features a scary melody, and while it’s still quiet it still retains the craziness promised by Geologist.  Emotions run wild on this track: “As I left my home I cried/And a substituted figure tried/To reconcile the things I’d left behind”.  The album then takes a turn, breaking out into one of the most gorgeously terrifying songs Animal Collective has ever done: “Applesauce”.  Avey Tare’s voice hits all the right places, soft yet intense, passionate yet subtle.  He punches the melody in at certain key moments, highlighted with hits from the instruments, screaming “I DON’T HAVE A POSE FOR APPLESAUCE ON CLOTHES!”  “Wide Eyed”, a song written and performed by lead guitarist Deakin, is an interesting and welcome change of pace.  His voice is much more rooted in traditional rock.  The percussion on this track takes a page from the Middle Eastern handbook.  It was the perfect place for the track.  “Father Time” is about exactly what its title describes, a personification of time, and one that is the “founder”.  It begins with the sound of tape rewinding backwards, reinforcing this “time travel” theme.  Guitar lines mirror the synth lines, and Avey breaks out one of the most memorable lines of the album: “Imagination shows you what only time is supposed to tell you/Time’s got real big hands and bigger plans from a long time ago.  The tame aestheic presented in “Wide Eyed” continues throughout the next song, a track from the illustrious drummer Panda Bear called “New Town Burnout”.  It’s a simple lullaby with intricate musicianship.  Filtered, jittery synthesizers clash against an intricate beat before swirling into an emotion-filled repetitive outro that smoothly transitions into “Monkey Riches”.  Raw-sounding clacks on a snare drum rim keep time on quarter notes while a melody that sounds like its being fed through a printer plays.  (That was supposed to be a compliment).  The lyrics seem to be directed at all the MPP-core fans, the ones who hoped for MPP to be handed back to them with different packaging: “But why am I still looking for a golden age?...Why does dawn leave everybody home with chance?/It makes me wonder how I even wrote this song/Does this not occur to almost everyone?”  And then there’s the chorus: “I MADE A MONKEY RICH!”  Now that’s open to interpretation, but to me it seems like a pretty clear stab at record executives, but who knows that could just be me.  “Mercury Man” settles from a frantic intro into some sort of groove, highlighted by scary synth arpeggios.  “Pulleys” incorporates an actual piano with a very slow moving melody and the signature wall of noise pushig it.  It’s not the most exciting song on the record, but I personally like it because I invested myself into the melody and lyrics.  The last track, however, ups the intensity a little bit one last time.  An East-Asian style synth line leads while Panda’s hands break out a primal sixteenth note hand percussion part.  As the bridge approaches the intensity once again swells into a crazy and triumphant outro.

     Animal Collective is a band that will always continue to do their own thing, and the fact that they are still so acclaimed by fan and critic alike is a testament to their songwriting ability, but with Centipede Hz we find a dip in critical appeal.  While similar, the things that made Merriweather so popular are missing: the glossy production, the pronounced harmonies, even the danceablity.  However I don’t think Animal Collective wanted those things to be present in Centipede Hz.  They wanted it weird.  They wanted it fuzzy.  They wanted to let the people know that their shit is not gonna be played on a rock/alternative station alongside the most accessible of bands.  The music Animal Collective makes is the bridge between the mainstream and the outcast, taking the best of both.  Both Avey and Panda execute pop smarts with the fantastic hooks they write, but the overall song structure, lyricism, and sound is one that will confuse and scare the casual music listener.  Centipede Hz is kind of a middle finger in that respect.  “Here’s the shit we’re proud of, here is who we are, if you don’t like it then suck it, because there will always be people that can appreciate what we’re trying to do.”  I’m proud to be one of those people.  9.5 Centipede Hurt out of 10.

FAVE TRACKS: Moonjock, Today's Supernatural, Rosie Oh, Applesauce, Wide Eyed, New Town Burnout, Monkey Riches, Amanita