Like the Grateful Dead before them, the psychedelic heads of Animal Collective are evolving from raging sonic hallucinations into gentler, more melodic trips. The ninth disc from this Brooklyn/Baltimore crew tries balancing shameless beauty with ecstatic weirdness, and when they nail it, it's breathtaking. "Summertime Clothes" is a swirling pastoral with dance-music thrust, while "Guys Eyes" is a cauldron of the Pet Sounds vocal fractals. "Lion in a Coma" and "No More Runnin" get lost in their own oddness. But the magic returns on "Brothersport," a bacchanalian Brian Wilson-meets-Kraftwerk jam that repeats "open up your throat." Whether it's a celebration of singing, magic mushrooms or blow jobs is your call.

“Time to Pretend”

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”