Merriweather Post Pavilion

To write any more about Animal Collective's newest album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, would almost seem like a complete waste given the dozens of reviews already out there, but there's something about the record that draws you into it; you can't help but feel so excited, exuberant, and exhausted by the albums space-age Beach Boys harmonies and bassy, cyclical beats that you are left little in the way of recourse except to write about it on an weblog that less than a dozen people will read. The record is so infectious and inviting that it's almost impossible not to grab the nearest friend and twirl around the stereo despite the fact that they may have told you, like, a million times that Animal Collective just isn't their thing, man.

Accessibility, then, has always been the central issue of Animal Collective. With each album, they progressively become easier to stomach to the newcomer, evolving from loose, noisy freak folk (I use the term disparagingly) to tighter, more electronic centered pop. Many reviews make the case that Merriweather is the most immediate and accessible album from the group to date, and while it might never be easy to convince your buddy that this one is totally different from the one where they bang on pots and pans and yell into the microphone while doing handstands for an hour, the album is admittedly very poppish, and possibly their most unabashedly at that: case in point, the lovely, shining, grooving, perfect ode to domesticity "My Girls"- maybe the best thing they've ever done-is as addicting and instant as anything that's come out in the last few years while still managing to make the case that perhaps being a dad and husband is cool after all. It's the kind of song that only Animal Collective could have done, its brilliant (sampled?) synth arpeggios, harmonized vocals (they've everywhere on this record) and potent bass bursts spinning around lyrics that recall the love-and-relationship centered Feels with perhaps a dash of John Lennon circa Double Fantasy if Sean had been born a girl and everything had worked out.

Many of the songs are built around repeating drones and pulses, which lends it a little less variety on a song by song basis than last year's Strawberry Jam, but electronics manipulator and fellow member Geologist manages to create sounds so textured they're nearly tangible, physical things. "Bluish" has a bubbling backbeat with piano lines that somehow pull themselves above the surface while "Lion in a Coma" (in)famously resurrects the jaw harp and didgeridoo. "Daily Routine"'s quick synths recall Jam's "#1" and "Summertime Clothes" is keep aloft by its percussion and likable chorus. Opener "In the Flowers" starts off deceptively quiet before exploding into a mash of voice and sounds. Cheeky buggers.

Still, despite the increasingly pop-oriented leanings, it's still up for debate as to whether or not Merriweather Post Pavilion is Animal Collective's most accessible record, which leads me to my only complaint: the sounds, while undeniably fantastic, can be somewhat repetitive. When they work (see "My Girls" or "Bluish"), they work, and do so in such a way that leaves you reaching for the previous track button on the stereo or media player, sometimes before the song is even over. When they don't quite click, it's noticeable, but forgivable. There are times when the band might stick with an idea for too long (I'm looking at you "Brother Sport." Why couldn't we get more of that intro hook???) without allowing enough variation. Perhaps I can learn to love it.

Perhaps we all might have to. After all, this might be the future of pop music. While some detractors ("Their old stuff was way better") might complain that this just isn't the same band who did Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished or Danse Manatee or even Sung Tongs or Feels, they have to realize that this band is evolving and not looking back. Is this the future of pop? I'm not optimistic enough to give mainstream music that much credit. Will Merriweather Post Pavilion elevate itself to a decade-defining album next to Kid A or...well...it's too soon to say, isn't it? The only thing that's certain these days is the present, and presently we've been presented with a pleasing pop album that some are saying is the album of the still young year.

Ah, but there I go again, looking forward when I should be concentrating on the now. Let's worry about the future when we get there.

The Plague of the Zombies

John Gilling's The Plague of the Zombies, a product of the influential Hammer studio, is probably one of the more overlooked films both within the zombie genre itself and when placed next to its Hammer contemporaries, for whom this was their first and only zombie outing.

Released in 1966, two years before Romero's genre-redefining Night of the Living Dead (more on that later), Plague is the other 1960's zombie movie, was nonetheless often in the shadow of Romero's film despite being a strong picture in its own right. One reason for this, I suspect, was probably due to the fact that Plague was missing key Hammer actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, whose names are synonymous with a Hammer bill.

Furthermore, the zombie film in general was largely being ignored. The genre had stayed true to its voodoo roots for the most part from 1932's White Zombie on (though there were some exceptions) onwards, and with the ushering in of the atomic age and the Cold War and fears of Communism both home and abroad hot on its heels, the zombie of voodoo lore just wasn't frightening anymore. Moreover, vampire (particularly Dracula) films were more in at the time (the aforementioned duo of Cushing and Lee starred in many of the Hammer Dracula pictures), and despire Plague's double billing with Dracula: Prince of Darkness, it somehow slipped through the cracks of time.

While it sticks to the old school roots of voodoo magic, Plague has some unique touches that make it well worth the time. As opposed to many zombie films that were set in Haiti or Africa, Plague takes place in a Cornish town in England, where it mixes the best of both worlds: voodoo dolls and zombie rituals combine with the ghostly, empty moors of the English countryside. While not as unforgiving and socially relevant as Romero's film two years later, The Plague of the Zombies is nonetheless a strong entry in the genre, powered by good-to-great performances all around and a neat dream sequence where the dead rise from their graves. It's a real shame then that Hammer never made another zombie film; as the genre began to gain steam and reach a fever pitch in the 70's and 80's, Hammer could have given the Italian gore maestros a run for their money.

Buy it here, here, here or here.