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- Summary: The latest full-length release from Baltimore-based Animal Collective features a nearly 22-minute-long track.
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- Record Label: Domino
- Genre(s): Pop/Rock
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 9
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Mixed: 3 out of 9
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Negative: 0 out of 9
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UncutSep 26, 2023Even better [than Time Skiffs]: consistently inventive rather than merely quirky, it makes sincere effort to get to the emotional core of what they do. [Nov 2023, p.25]
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Sep 26, 2023Most albums would capsize under weight of a colossus like “Defeat”, a seamless combination of disembodied, sweet yet wounded underwater harmonies, drone-fueled introspection and outbreaks of mellow yet exuberant rhythmic mantras (which echo the Grateful Dead at their most joyously lively) that doesn’t waste a second despite its marathon 22-minute duration. However, the rest of Isn’t It Now? lives up to the outsized expectations created by its centrepiece.
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Sep 26, 2023Albums like Feel, Strawberry Jam and Merriweather Post Pavilion are typically considered Animal Collective's best works, yet they all lack the sustained presence of Isn't It Now? Lord only knows if it's the impact of Elevado or simply 20-odd years of musical chemistry coalescing into something new, but however it happened, Animal Collective found the now sound.
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Sep 28, 2023Isn’t It Now? also retains the band’s knack for defamiliarizing their influences, in the same way that Sung Tongs could make you feel like you were hearing a guy strumming an acoustic guitar for the first time in your life.
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Sep 29, 2023Isn't It Now? carries over the inspiration and fire Animal Collective rekindled on Time Skiffs. It finds them reveling in a state of joyful curiosity, but exploring with a knowing control earned through years of getting to know themselves and their singular sound inside out.
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Sep 26, 2023The breathtakingly gorgeous “Stride Rite” is about as pensive as Animal Collective has ever been. Composed of a myriad of cascading piano chords, the song amounts to an eerie, ethereal experience about the many heartbreaks that come with maturation, one expressed with a level of clarity that’s sorely lacking from the rest of Isn’t It Now?
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Sep 29, 2023The album as a whole is more often prone to meander, as if the band gets a little lost in their new terrain, unable, at times, to bring their thought full circle.