Feels
- Animal Collective
- Band Name: Animal Collective
- Record Label: Fat Cat
- Release Date: Oct 18, 2005
- Critic Score
- Most active
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Breathlessly giddy and shamelessly trippy. [21 Oct 2005, p.75]
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91AC are all about the sometimes blissful, often uncanny intermingling of song and space. [Nov 2005, p.98]
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Feels is a near-stunning album a notable amount of the time.
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Animal Collective have made the album I hoped they'd make, and even that it's autumn and summer's over.
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90Feels is an excellent record, one that, despite a more conventional approach, happens to get better over time.
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90To call these songs ambitious would be an understatement. [Oct 2005, p.76]
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Feels is a psychedelic wonderland filled with life-affirming warmth.
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90Feels is layered as no other Collective album before it. [#70, p.87]
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90This is a wonderful album -- and a significant advance over the excellent Sung Tongs.
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A carefully sequenced, fully imagined album--one that's designed to be consumed by people wearing headphones and staring into space.
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88A glorious, noisy, melodic, celebratory release from the ever-inventive group.
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Feels takes the Collective in an exciting new direction, creating the kind of record that expands on the group's less esoteric strengths while also pushing their sound forward.
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84It's cosmic Americana as once charted by Mercury Rev in the druggier days of yerself Is Steam and Boces. [#17, p.101]
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'Sung Tongs' brought a smattering of organization to the band's chaos, and now 'Feels' finally sees them emerge, blinking, into the sunlight. [15 Oct 2005, p.35]
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80The great achievement of Feels is that it throws everything at every track yet never loses sight of the tunes themselves.
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80Every bit as chaotically charming as its predecessor. [Nov 2005, p.108]
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80Feels depends on a balancing act between brilliance and whimsy, and some may need convincing that a purposely childlike band... is not twee. [Nov 2005, p.110]
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80It's on the sonic departures, though, that Feels strikes its most resonant chord.
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The group sounds freer than ever before, almost as though they've never bothered with rock in their lives, and have only happened upon a bare few LPs before beginning their recording career.
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80It's a very strange album indeed. Happily, it's also a very good one. [Nov 2005, p.131]
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80Swapping campfire cosiness for expansive joy, they sound so accomplished the Flaming Lips comparisons fall by the wayside.
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Half of the album is rambunctious and full, driving and manic; the other half charms us with melancholic lullabies fueled by a single sip from the purple bottle. The result: With Feels, Animal Collective has created its first pop masterpiece.
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Feels further confirms that not only does Animal Collective make music different from anything else that's out there – these folks are also quite good at it.
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If it isn't as formally shocking as "Sung Tongs," it's still a strong record. [17 Oct 2005]
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80Feels is a highly rewarding journey into pop music's most primal, earthy, esoteric and ultimately beautiful places. And it's unlike anything else you will hear this year.
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Too much of the record seems content to be beautifully languid, but too flighty to really unsettle you. [#11, p.105]
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70What's most frustrating about them is precisely what's most appealing: Their refusal to write traditional songs, coupled with their giggling nature-child personas, adds an air of mystery and makes for some beautifully offbeat melodies. [Nov 2005, p.131]
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Unpredictably unique. [Dec 2005, p.126]
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Feels doesn't trump earlier, more intimate Animal Collective releases. It's just louder and messier.
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70Although surprisingly self-conscious at moments, Feels remains rife with a triumphant beauty, a bucolic sound that stirs and entrances the listener like a happy secret.
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70"Feels" is by far the most agreeable Animal Collective yet, but whether or not that's a good thing is for you to decide.
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70Working best with eyes closed and a fertile imagination, Feels plays like a dreamscape of interconnected happenings, some coincidental, some intended, that's as dense as it is languid.
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60Despite its many wondrous moments, 'Feels' is not a record for everyone.
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So refined at times it borders on the insipid.
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Feels fails to come together as a coherent whole.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 45 out of 49
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Mixed: 1 out of 49
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Negative: 3 out of 49
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10
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10
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3Pretentious and chaotic noise. They have a ton of potential, but no pay-off on this record.