Casa Vista vs. Strawberry Jam

Tuesday and Casa Vista were host to a basemented, moodlighted listening experience. Animal Collective provided the content (Roughly filtered through layers of pre-arcanized-vernacular 'Casa Vista' translates to good friends and good music)

Now, I've followed this band. I've heard most if not all of their released material and even a decent amount of their instantaneous/spontaneous goods. They've most always excited me; I seem instinctively to correlate intrigue to interest. What I mean by this in the context of this review(if you will), is that when I listen to an album in its entirety and get the sense that I haven't really "listened" to the "entire" album, it strongly piques my interest. Animal Collective has often provided me this. Feels and Project Hummer did not (although both were very strong and very enjoyable releases).

Don't worry, everything has relevance.

It seemed to me that the biggest influence on this album could have been previous Animal Collective works. They have a sizable catalog these days and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they sat down and studied it all. In this sense I feel they've grown without necessarily providing anything new. Which isn't a bad thing. The album is heavily reminiscent of Spirit They're gone, Spirit They've Vanished, which is my favorite of theirs ('Bat You'll Fly' is a near perfect pop song soaked in ink and ornamented with day-glo stickers) as both albums seem to operate under the paradigm of the sunken pop song. But where STGSTV took you to the depths of the ocean where light and fluorescent color seem to joyously and elusively dart around you, Strawberry Jam takes you to the shallows where colorful reefs and schools of tropical fish overwhelm the senses and the sun is comfortingly in full view. Vocals are turned up, screeches are brought down. Pretty Panda Bear samples are front-and-center, dissonant synth work moves to the back.

Again, none of this is necessarily negative, I simply feel that it's not as progressive as their other works. From a band that's always seemed to want to stretch itself (look at the differential created between Here Comes the Indian and Campfire Songs/Sung Tongs), this release feels like a band growing old and wanting to settle down. I could be entirely wrong, but I would expect future Animal Collective releases to sound much like this one.

All in all I love the album after having only heard the whole thing once and still feel it's some of the most creative music being made right now. My only complaint is that it feels like a mean of their previous work, which isn't much of a complaint I suppose.