Sung Tongs

Animal Collective: Avey Tare, Panda Bear (vocals, acoustic guitar).

SUNG TONGS plays like a collection of campfire songs for the blissfully deranged. Champions of naive folk, swirling psychedelia, and playground-styled sing-song games, Animal Collective makes music that is difficult to categorize and even harder to resist. Acoustic guitars, primitive percussion, and harmonizing voices are the meat of the sound here, but the results go leagues beyond the sum of the parts. Circular repetitions, chattering choral interplay, wisps of speech and laughter, and surreal production tricks create a thoroughly disorienting and delightful listen.

From the goofy, fluttering phrasing of Who Could Win a Rabbit to the lilting harmonies in College (which could easily be an outtake from the Beach Boys' PET SOUNDS), Animal Collective oozes with a starry-eyed, back-to-childhood sensibility. But like anyone's youth, SUNG TONGS is full of monsters and things that go bump in the night. The ominous backwards voices in Visiting Friends and the thumping tribal menace of We Tigers leave little doubt that Animal Collective has one foot firmly on the dark side. This unique album has the feel of a long journey with no certain guarantees of return. For the bold and curious, SUNG TONGS is a must.