Sep. 05, 2012 - Issue #881: Sex 2012
Centipede Hz
Animal Collective {recordings_bands_mg} Centipede Hz {/recordings_bands_mg}
Domino,
3
Centipede Hz is a teeming, digital rainforest, an undiscovered ecosystem come alive with percussive blips and keyboard gurgles and warbled vocal lines and plenty of less definable sonic quivers n' quakes in the aural distance. There's a density to the album, Animal Collective's ninth, and that heft proves itself a little unwieldly, even for these guys, usually so adept at handling their own weirdness. That does lend Hz some cohesion, but also gilds every song with a sameness: Opener "Moonjock" rides a pounding rhythm and kaleidoscopic vocals into the percussive rattles of "Today's Supernatural," which transitions into the poppy bass-bounce of "Rosie Oh" ... and so on. Rhythmic and hooky and similar. The shimmering heights that the band is capable of reaching, as evidenced on Merriweather Post Pavillion ("My Girls," "In the Flowers," even the kinda goofy "Lion in a Coma") seem shaved down here, the unity on Hz not necessarily aiming for or succeeding to reach those same heights. That's really not such a bad thing: a dark jungle of sounds is still a compelling thing to explore, especially one as lively as this. It's just that Centipede Hz could've offered more of a map before dropping us into a deep, digital Amazon. vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus
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