"...and I should be floating but I'm weighted by thinking..."
I was pretty late joining the Animal Collective party. Pitchfork and countless other music blogs praised the majority of their albums but every time I tried listening to them I just couldn't get into it. When Merriweather Post Pavilion came out, it blew me away. I went back and gave the other albums another try and although some are flawed, they are all charming and unique and there's no album of theirs that doesn't have at least a few amazing tracks. So to hear that they were releasing an EP only ten months after Merriweather, left me very surprised and excited.
I got the chance to see Animal Collective at the ATP NY Festival in September and although their show was deafeningly loud, it was a lot of fun and one of the better performances that weekend. The first song they played was this fantastic two part track consisting of a beautiful first half with amazing vocals by Avey Tare which soon breaks into a flute looped ritual dance jam that sounds like a Hobbit party on acid. I couldn't get this song out of my head for days and franticly tried to find out what it was. After much research I found that it was called "Grace" and that they had been playing it for awhile now but it was never released on an album. Then they announced the Fall Be Kind EP and the first song is the one and only "Grace" (now titled "Graze"). This = Me ecstatic.
Not much changed from the live version to the EP version, only a new (beautiful) cello part during the first half and a few lyric changes. It's a fantastic opener and one of the better tracks in Animal Collectives catalogue.
"Graze" transitions perfectly into "What Would I Want? Sky" with eerie ambiance and melting vocals. Then the slamming drum loop starts and leaves you extremely satisfied throughout the three minute intro. The song really starts when a sampled Grateful Dead track kicks in and constructs the background to Avey Tares flawless melodies. Panda Bear delivers some light harmonies and with the help of some female vocal oohs and ahhs, this track is successful in being nothing short of heavenly.
Satanic voices introduce "Bleed", a muddy song where Panda Bear and Avey Tares vocals melt together creating a slow churning track focusing more on ambiance and noise than structure. It doesn't really go anywhere but it doesn't really have to. It serves it's purpose in being the middle track, and beats most of the filler songs that other bands use to fill the gaps between their stronger songs.
"On A Highway" is exactly what it sounds like. A dreamy track the builds to a flawless chorus with abstract percussion and stick clicks and back down again. It leaves you with a floating feeling, the feeling you get when you look out at all of the buildings and cars as you drive by, and realize exactly how small you really are compared to everything.
Fall Be Kind ends with "I Think I Can". It wraps up the album perfectly, completing the circle that "Graze" started. Consisting of ritualistic harmonies and chants and pounding drums, it's a lot of fun and ends with a beautiful back and forth vocal exchange between Avey and Panda. Eerie looping synths and ambiance fade out, and the EP is done.
A lot of these tracks were written during the Merriweather period, but they felt that there was a darker vibe to them and that they wouldn't fit in with the sunny, poppy feeling of the album. These five tracks belong here and work well together to create an unsettling and eerie EP while still consisting of their signature loops, harmonies and weirdness. Animal Collective have been around for ten years and are still creating some of the most unique and original music that I'm positive will stand the test of time.
9.6/10
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