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All told, though, as we crawl to the end of this Year Of The Animal Collective, this release can certainly be said to have further elevated their status.
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Given its fragmented genesis, it's surprising how listenable and of-a-piece Fall Be Kind is.
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Nothing on Fall Be Kind sounds like b-side fodder, and one song, “What Would I Want? Sky”, is already canon bound.
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Stripped of all the sonic flotsam that usually surrounds them, Animal Collective come into their own--if you can ignore the chatter to listen with innocent ears, they surpass ‘good’ and remain bewildering.
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Under The RadarThe new EP contains some of their strongest material to date. [Holiday 2009, p.82]
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If Fall Be Kind is noticeably less hooky than "Merriweather Post Pavilion," it sounds just as ravishing, and offers an equally cohesive whole.
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Released at the end of a smashingly successful year, Fall Be Kind is a worthy epilogue to an all-time classic.
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Last year's Merriweather Post Pavilion, SPIN's 2009 Album of the Year, forwent such formlessness, but the haze returns on this five-track EP. Fortunately, Merriweather's hummable, techno-indebted delirium also returns.
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Fall Be Kind really mines the depths of the b-bin: musical theater + jam band + Putumayo. Liking it feels goofy, even though it’s pretty good.
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Far from the emperor with no summertime clothes, the five songs on Fall Be Kind--a mixture of holdovers from the MPP sessions and new material recorded this year--retain the electronics, but add some samples and head in a darker thematic direction.
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Fall Be Kind is yet another reason why Animal Collective TOTALLY TRANSCEND any notion of hipster hype-ism, another feather in a crowded cap. God bless these guys.
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The band’s trademark solemnity and repetitive downtempo styles prevail in the final three tracks, making you feel like you’re treading in a swimming pool of honey--in a good way.
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Fall Be Kind shows the band on the path to becoming an even mellower band and nothing here is exceptionally energetic except for the last half of Graze.
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As a collection of songs, each one ranks among the band’s best; as an album, it is a swift, personal and evocative statement from a band who has risen to fame by being one of the more mystifying and challenging modern bands to comply to pop structures, and it is all in the details.
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This is Animal Collective at their finest folks, inviting everyone in to see them at their peak and loving the freedom that comes with being on top of the world.
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The major criticism of Animal Collective has been the band's proclivity to bewilder listeners more than give them the pop songs they want. It's difficult to criticize Merriweather on those terms, but it applies a lot more to Fall Be Kind. What's worse, that bewilderment prevents Fall Be Kind from being what the best Animal Collective releases always are: fun.
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FilterThe resulting album comes across, for the most part, as a peaceful, relaxing--if extremely weird--trip through a newfound musical slipstream. [Holiday 2009, p. 98]
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Fall Be Kind doesn’t exactly break past the barriers set by this year’s "Merriweather Post Pavilion," but it is an excellent extension of the ethos captured by that particular record.
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There's not a cut here that will make anyone think differently about the Baltimore-born outfit but it's a worthy addition to their catalog.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 119 out of 161
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Mixed: 5 out of 161
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Negative: 37 out of 161
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MikeM.Feb 2, 2010
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GeoffreyGDec 19, 2009
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Sep 1, 2012