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Mar 5, 201290For its new fond feeling and its quick animal stride, t offers something that we can all be swept up in, and all from the moment "Animal Life" gets close.
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Feb 14, 201290This album is just a few hairs (a couple of tracks and/or segues) short of being a transcendent gem, or masterpiece.
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Feb 14, 201285Animal Joy represents a remarkable band in their prime of their career and is a stunning success on every level.
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Feb 14, 201283Animal Joy, in its hunt for instinctual performance, comes close to the classic album Shearwater surely has in it.
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Feb 24, 201282This album creates that space, where both that source of fear and joy are simultaneous, inevitable, and sublime.
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Feb 14, 201282Animal Joy provides not only a well-developed and unique aesthetic, but it offers a way in for a number of listening styles, a fact that should keep the album rewarding.
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Feb 10, 201282For all of the exploring, Shearwater is at their most affecting when they stay at home.
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Feb 27, 201280Animal Joy surfs similar channels to their last release, The Golden Archipelago, evoking stratospheric textures anchored down by melodically well-honed tunes. [Mar 2012, p.102]
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Feb 27, 201280Though harder, happier and a little more direct, Animal Joy is above all a Shearwater record: swooping, eloquent, concerned with nature.
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Feb 27, 201280A contender for their boldest LP yet.
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Feb 22, 201280As You As You Were already feels like a festival anthem in waiting. Stunningly good music.
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Feb 21, 201280It's unburdened by obligatory connections to what's come before and as a result, has a renewed amount of energy.
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Feb 14, 201280Dense, powerful, wild, yet immaculately rendered, Animal Joy blends the expansive, cinematic scope of contemporaries like Other Lives and the National with the arty drama of "San Jacinto"-era Peter Gabriel.
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Feb 13, 201280Meiburg and the group have swapped the muddy tranquillity that kept them muted and unheard for a daring dose of starry eyed wonderment that really should unleash the groups collective wings, enabling them to fly higher than ever before.
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Feb 3, 201280Meiburg's troubled tenor is abetted by sinewy arrangements full of the disquiet of that decade. [Mar 2012, p.95]
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Feb 16, 201278Animal Joy has a focus and progression.
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Mar 1, 201270The result is not a great leap forward but a stationary jump--with one foot forward, another backward, and a hard landing on both feet.
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Mar 1, 201270Although it lacks the conceptual cohesion and embroidered orchestration of their last three albums and has a few weak tracks, Animal Joy adds sentiment to intellect, an undefined rebellion to Shearwater's heady songwriting and thereby challenges that duality.
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Feb 21, 201270The trio tosses musical Hail Mary's and nails it almost every time, producing a record that's life-affirming in its grandiosity.
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Feb 9, 201270Control and ambition can go together, and Meiburg proves that, in the right hands, the combination can yield some exciting results.
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Feb 3, 201270We're listening to a band shedding their heavy coat after a long winter and braving forward into a brighter spring. [#39, p.69]
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Feb 3, 201270Taken as a whole, Animal Joy maintains the quality of Shearwater's earlier outings without quite taking things to the next level they're eminently capable of achieving.
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Feb 3, 201270While it may lack the dense orchestrations and insular connotations of previous efforts, Animal Joy packs a powerful punch all of its own, typified by an artfully sequenced set of songs that capture the human condition with panache.
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Feb 16, 201269Animal Joy proves they are still a naturalistically minded band, but in dropping the more arcane conceptual gambits of their self-described "trilogy" ... and speaking in layman's terms both emotionally and sonically, they're taking their best shot at meeting new listeners halfway.
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Mar 9, 201266While there are plenty of fantastic moments to be found and the album is certainly recommendable, its sluggishly repetitive second half reminds the listener too often of exactly what the strengths and weaknesses of this band are.
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Mar 5, 201260Instead of a coherent collection of songs, Animal Joy feels like a series of very clever blueprints that, while admirable in form, are often (despite that title), rather bloodless.
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Feb 24, 201260It's aggressive, impressive, but never makes an emotional connection.
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Feb 22, 201260Touring with Coldplay have clearly done little to dim the scale of Meiburg's ambitions. [Mar 2012, p.112]
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Feb 15, 201260It's not as unified as previous records, but with fewer meanders towards the mainstream and more of the electronic adventures of last year's freebie 'Shearwater Is Enron', Animal Joy may herald a bold new incarnation.
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Feb 14, 201260Animal Joy falters where it mistakes crude simplicity for reinvention.
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Feb 10, 201260A peculiar unwillingness to climax is something that many Shearwater records have suffered with over the years, and Animal Joy is unfortunately no exception.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 3
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Mixed: 0 out of 3
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Negative: 0 out of 3
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