Day 0983 - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective “Merriweather Post Pavilion” (2009)

Animal Collective are nothing if not prolific.  Along with releasing either an album or EP for every year they’ve been in existence, the individual members have released a slew of solo albums between them.  Whether or not that’s a good thing obviously depends on your opinion of the quality of their output.

My limited experience of their work (from memory, this one, previous release “Strawberry Jam”, “Centipede Hz” and Avey Tare’s’ solo album “Down There”) leads me to believe it’s not a terrible thing.   I’m not a rabid fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve never heard anything that puts me off them either.   What I find with them is something similar to some other bands from that era: that I quite enjoy it on first listen but (a) I don't retain too much memory of the songs after the fact and (b) the initial enthusiasm vanishes on re-listens.

The band had briefly parted company with their guitarist so were writing songs based more around samples and keys.   Some comparisons are made to Flaming Lips, which I could kind of hear in that it's spacey, swirling, layered psychedelic pop.  “My Girls” and “No More Runnin’”  have kind of a Beach Boys vibe to them, both in the vocal harmonies, the production, and even the timbre of the lead vocal.  “Lion in a Coma” reeks of  India-influenced Beatles.  

Again, overall there were a lot of interesting sounds, and I'd be willing to check out their other albums that come 'into my orbit' but they're not a band that are on my mind much (cool album cover though).

 

Day 0415 - Van Halen

Van Halen "Van Halen" (1978)

This album is the business!  I listened to it a year or two ago out of curiosity (everyone knows the name Van Halen) and was wowed by the raw energy and relative musical inventiveness - within the rock idiom.  The sudden burst of doowop vocals gave me a pleasant surprise back then, and again now. Eddie Van Halen is a guitar legend, even if 'Eruption' didn't prove it (it does), he kills on every other track with his riffs and lead breaks.

Apparently the band had been scooped up by Kiss' Gene Simmons who, seeing their potential, put them to work writing demos for both themselves and for Kiss.  He even tried to recruit Eddie VH for his band!

Van Halen could easily be accused of helping to start the whole 80s hair-metal thing, but as is often the case with the progenitors of various styles, they're so much better than much of the rest of it.