Animal Collective: People : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

This Brooklyn quartet broke out last year with Feels, which sounded something like Another Green World on mescaline: all bizarro pastoral reveries full of primitivist tom-tom beats, rippling guitars and exuberantly yelped vocals. This EP is just as out-there. The very good "Tikwid" shows off Animal Collective's ability to sound warmly tuneful and all-over-the-place at once, offering twinkling piano, barely intelligible chatter and stretched Beach Boys harmonies. But "My Favorite Color" and the title track are weirder and less memorable, as the band dives into the ether and works up head-trip beauty without giving much to latch on to. With two of four tracks of not terribly interesting studio stuff and one of four a live version of the title track, it's hard to recommend People too strongly, but it does make you wonder what these guys will do next.