Animal Collective : Honeycomb/Gotham

And this is what they did next. Launching the follow up to their groundbreaking 2009 album Merriweather Post Pavillion, Animal Collective crank up the intensity of their day-glo electro psychedelia. Honeycomb is oddly rigid, despite the many layers of warped synth and the sunny, harmonised vocal melody, driven by a fierce staccato rhythm. It’s colourful, but not joyful – imagine Animal Collective with an undercurrent of impatient rage, brilliant but a little cold. B-side Gotham is stretched and peeling, like a Beach Boys melody pulled through a toffee stretcher. There are moments of genius here, bombastic peaks amidst the trippy, elastic soundscape that feel like explosions under water. Loosely structured, strange and wonderful.