| Details | | Distributor: | Phantom Import Distributi | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | DDD |
Album Notes
Outsider music's crossover cover boys take a giant step towards mainstream accessibility with this album--then jump right over it into the bushes. Having garnered the highest freak honors with their previous album, SUNG TONGS, here they expand from two to four members and take their chirpy call-and-response harmonies to a whole other level, adding a cohesive production that welds all the disparate elements into genuine melodic hooks. The opening track, "Did You See the Words," even has a distinct indie-rock chorus (for a while anyway) in addition to the scattered ivory tinkling and Panda Bear's upper-octave-strained ravings. Not long afterwards they're layering on the war whoops and Beach Boy vocalizing until it all starts rising and falling like the sea, often alongside contrapuntal piano and more robust and full-bodied drum work than previous AC albums. Somehow or other their signature primitivism coalesces into near pop perfection and seldom falters anywhere along its breakneck 52-minute run.
Editorial Reviews
...[B]reathlessly giddy and shamelessly trippy... - Grade: A
Entertainment Weekly
4 stars out of 5 - FEELS is every bit as chaotically charming as its predecessor....By turns playful and upbeat, subdued and drifting...
Mojo
3 out of 5 stars - ...[M]aintains a sense of childlike joy and free-flowing exploration while creating bizarro pastoral reveries out of primitive tom-tom beats, guitar screeches and all kinds of overlapping vocals....
Rolling Stone
[I]nclusive in its busy, cluttered sound, where everything seems to be happening at once and nothing is left out....[With an] emphasis on accessibility through melody and the conveyance of an almost childlike sense of wonder.
The Wire
Ranked #36 in Spin's 40 Best Albums Of 2005 - [With] falsetto singsong, light-hearted do-do-dos, war-play whoops. Drop your guard and it'll sound something like wisdom.
Spin
FEELS is layered as no other Collective album before it. Because of this, the instruments melt into a pure sound where melodies and bits of harmonic ideas are left to linger long after they've disappeared.
Magnet
Ranked #4 in Mojo's Top Ten Underground Albums Of 2005.
Mojo
Included in The Wire's 2005 Rewind: 50 Records Of The Year.
The Wire
| See an error? Submit a change request |
All rights reserved.
