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Feb 3, 2022There’s a new sense of groundedness, as though, faced with certain inevitabilities, they feel more connected than ever to the world around them.
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Feb 1, 2022Its obvious replay value hints at the kind of staying power required of truly great albums and while it’s unlikely to dethrone Merriweather Post Pavilion’s status as their greatest album, it is without question the elite artistic accomplishment the world has been waiting for in a spiritual successor.
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Feb 4, 2022It’s always been about the process of making music for this band, and after a decade of critical busts and two years of a global pandemic, the passion that’s present here begs the belief that they’ve finally regained that unbridled joy, once again finding something really sweet happening amongst themselves.
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Feb 4, 2022With its inviting ambiance, unhurried vibe, and ebullient group harmonies, Time Skiffs readily conjures warm memories of AnCo’s late-2000s halcyon days. But the album possesses a personality and methodology all its own.
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Jan 25, 2022These nine songs are the most inviting and accessible Animal Collective have been in more than a decade, with lovely lazy-river synth squiggles and gangland vocals as smooth as melted butter. [Feb 2022, p.107]
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Mar 16, 2022Even within such historical constraints of tradition, the group manages to find new flavors to express, new combinations to offer. The collective’s preservation of our musical past continues to make time skiff and point the way to the future.
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Feb 10, 2022Whilst there is a real danger to being overly nostalgic, this album hits a happy medium.
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Feb 8, 2022It’s a great American psychedelic record that retains an outsider perspective. And in that, a decade of ambitious exploration has finally paid off.
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Feb 4, 2022Time Skiffs is a vibrant album, suggesting Animal Collective have well and truly rekindled their collective fire – and because of that, the pleasure is all ours. Gather round and enjoy its heartening warmth.
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Feb 4, 2022‘Time Skiffs’ is a gorgeous, exploratory album, containing some of the greatest creations this curious lot have turned in for years.
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Feb 3, 2022For some, this might be too tame. An album full of ‘Bluish’ rather than ‘Fireworks’. But for others, that means it’s the most accessible.
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Feb 3, 2022Time Skiffs angles between incidental blasts of digital fuzz and the purely melodic, resurrecting the freeform yet tangible instinct of Animal Collective’s earlier work; ambitiously addictive without appearing self-indulgently so.
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MojoJan 25, 2022While Time Skiffs sounds deeply, existentially scattered, every atom is in its rightful place. [Mar 2022, p.87]
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UncutJan 25, 2022While tracks like "Cherokee" take a gently pulsing and melodic groove and expand it into something quietly euphoric, before dipping happily back into quieter, odder moments. [Mar 2022, p.25]
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Feb 2, 2022Time Skiffs is a record meant to be played front to back; for those willing to ride the mellower waves, it’s a satisfying skiff, indeed.
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Feb 3, 2022It's an especially lucid reading of the sound they've been perfecting for over two decades at this point, and one that adds a human warmth to a group that's long been defined by their otherworldly nature.
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Feb 1, 2022Returning to their signature twinkling arpeggiated synths on the bulk of the record's nine chunky tracks, the band hearken back to a pre-Merriweather AnCo era, serving up some of the most accessible and least jarring tunes from the full ensemble since 2009 (save for 2020's Bridge to Quiet EP).
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Jan 31, 2022The album finds Animal Collective gracefully adapting their kaleidoscopic, existentially focused songs to the universal theme of life’s ephemerality. By definition it just means we’re hearing some vitality elude them too, as their usually energetic music gives way to wistful reflection.
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Feb 7, 2022Time Skiffs splits the difference between the pop and the avant, spaced-out family-pad music with solid drumming, deep-distance percussion, wobbly melodies, and harmonies somehow more blissed out than anything else.
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Feb 7, 2022Every so often, the disparate parts coalesce into something enjoyable: We Go Back and Dragon Slayer both exhibit a lovely playfulness. Stretched over 48 minutes, though, there’s the sense that for all its undoubted cleverness, Time Skiffs is not terribly easy to warm to.
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Feb 4, 2022Time Skiffs isn’t terrible; it’s inoffensive, nice, surprisingly easy-going.
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Feb 3, 2022As it is, it feels like an act of quiet consolidation rather than a breakthrough, aimed squarely at existing fans, unbothered by grabbing anyone else’s attention.
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Feb 3, 2022For a band renowned for their experimentation it doesn’t feel like much new ground is covered on Time Skiffs and even after years of waiting, by the end of the album you’re left wanting more.
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Feb 2, 2022These songs are like travel diaries full of passing observations and attempts to make sense of them within a grander picture. The album carries a somber tone. Loneliness and a longing for something distant, perhaps warmth and affection, permeate these songs.
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The WireJan 25, 2022While 2016’s Painting With was a jumble of interesting ideas lacking direction, Time Skiffs is the opposite: a paint by numbers indie pop affair completed using a quirky palette. While paring down to a more focused format is welcome, the music is suffocated by anachronisms, both within AC’s own and wider pop contexts. [Feb 2022, p.46]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 27 out of 30
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Mixed: 2 out of 30
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Negative: 1 out of 30
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Feb 4, 2022
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Feb 4, 2022
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Feb 4, 2022Good ol AC back in a mix of all their best sides imo! Started laughing from the first song being so catchy.