In a music world mostly dominated by people, one endangered species is ready to release another full-length album. It’s Panda Bear, front man of psychedelic electro-alternative band Animal Collective, and he has just released his fourth full-length album, “Tomboy.”
As expected from a member of the electronics-loving Animal Collective, heavy effects are everywhere in this album in which almost every song is a piece of psychedelic, ethereal wash of sound.
A perfect example of this is the opening track on the album, “You Can Count On Me.” The song is essentially a warm bed of wavy electronic sounds on top of which Panda Bear repeats “Know you can count on me,” coupled with largely nonsensical lyrics.
The song could be interpreted as a message to the listener, promising to deliver an entertaining album. “Tomboy” certainly succeeds in being entertaining. Unfortunately, it falters under the weight of one-sided songs and predominately unintelligible lyrics.
“Tomboy,” the next song on the album, sounds a lot like a fanfare, making it an appropriate title track for the album because it’s extremely catchy. There’s really no point in attempting to understand the lyrics on this song, or on the majority of the album in general.
Lyrical depth is not one of Panda Bear’s major concerns, and chances are that fans of Panda Bear aren’t looking for deep songwriting out of this album.
As the album continues from song to song, it starts to become apparent that once you have heard the first minute of each track, you have heard the entire thing. The songs on this album are almost entirely static. New melodic elements rarely crop up after the beginning of the track and it often feels like the entire album is set at one volume level.
When the roughly 50 minutes of this album are over, only about 15 minutes of it will have felt fresh and new.
This is not to say that there aren’t any hidden gems on this album. “Surfer’s Hymn” begins with the sound of ocean waves and proceeds to use bell-like sound effects heavily. The song is happy, tranquil and enjoyable. The fact that it’s one of the few songs on the album that evolves as it goes on is an added bonus.
“Last Night At The Jetty” features the best vocal melody on the album, and the song as a whole resembles a honky-tonk electronic dance from space.
“Scheherazade” is the highlight of this album, namely because piano plays a prominent role in the song, representing a breath of fresh air from an album otherwise inundated by electronic melodic effects and electronic vocals that sound largely the same. The presence of the piano as a largely unaffected instrument is a welcome change of pace.
Unfortunately, this relief constitutes too little, too late. By the time “Scheherazade” changes the pace of the album, the CD has become uninteresting.
“Tomboy” starts off with high energy and a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it doesn’t live up to its possibilities. Songs often begin well, only to conclude limply, with the exact same melodic elements as they began.
And with all the sound effects at his disposal, it’s a shame that Panda Bear didn’t put a little bit more variety into his vocal effects. That desire for more variety is unfortunately what defines this promising album.