Roger thought it was rather funny as, in his anger, Brian’s hair had become quite entangled with his telescope, and he was hunched over with his head somewhere in the vicinity of Freddie’s crotch.  However, there was a real sadness in the hopelessly-stuck guitarist’s voice as he moaned “aaaaaaaaaaw, Freddie…we thought that we had truly mapped the universe of operatic rock with our mystifyingly successful run of albums stretching back over a decade now.  But with this here “Barcelona”, you’ve shown us that this was but a mere Magellan cloud.  There is no way we can follow this.  Why don’t you fuck off and die, eh?”.  John went off to fetch some scissors to free the by now hopelessly-enmeshed Brian, and on the way decided he would quite like a cup of tea.

I’m pretty sure a similar scenario unfolded recently round at Animal Collective Towers.  There they were, still being attended to by the imaginary midgets carrying big bowls of drugs that their remarkable album Feels should rightly have afforded them, when their member Panda Bear snucked out and knocked out one of 2007’s most critically acclaimed albums of Beach Boys-inspired experimental pop music, Person Pitch.  Talk about pressure.  Surely they must have felt the pressure of following those two masterpieces?  Not a bit of it; in fact Strawberry Jam builds on them.  It retiles the walls of Feels with some of the sonic textures of Person Pitch, replacing any last remnants of their earlier folkish existence with insistent, choppy, reverb-heavy rhythms. 

The album sets off with a run of pop bangers so succulent you want to stick them on a stick, cook them over some burning sticks, and stick ‘em down your throat til you’re sick. From the whip-cracking glam stomp of single “Peacebone”, through “Unsolved Mysteries’” throbbing Ripper-nightmares, the dissolving word-tumble and guitar-tremble that is “Chores”, and up to the album’s twin highlights, the vertiginous pile of hooks, harmony and holler that is “For Reverend Green”, and the jittery hypermelodic sparks of next single (released on November 5th, gunpowder plotwatchers) “Fireworks”, it doesn’t put a single foot wrong.  With no disrespect to the slow comedown of the four that follow, I don’t think I’ve heard a finer sequence of tracks on any album this year. 

Once you’ve disentangled yourself, go get yourself some.  And yes, I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea.  If you’re making one.

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