Animal Collective Never Knows When to Say When

We say this with absolute certainty: we will never willingly go see Animal Collective live ever again. The past two times we've seen them have been trying at best. Last year, we convinced two friends to buy their own tickets to accompany us to one of their shows. Last Friday, we talked another friend into going with us to see AC. Both nights ended with us apologizing to our friends for what we made them endure. After Friday night's sold-out show at Neumo's, our crotchety companion provided his two-word review: "vapid and inane." Sigh, he's dead right.

Unfortunately, we didn't hear anything from their last album, Feels, as the band opted to primarily draw from their latest release Strawberry Jam. Sure, that album has some great songs--including the first track "Peacebone," which was the set's highlight and had the crowd bouncing in time--but we really wanted to hear more of AC's ethereal, occasionally Beach Boys-esque songs, like "Purple Bottle" and "Grass" and less of the drone. Too bad that the drone was all that Animal Collective had to offer, with so many songs drawn out way beyond their expiration date and ending in repetition upon repetition. Even lovely harmony vocals (and definitely whooping and yipping) grow old and lose their beauty when they are repeated over and over again. They end up devoid of meaning, as empty as a skeleton in a dress. We still like Animal Collective on their albums just fine, so we think Friday night sealed the deal: from this point forward, we only need hear them in recorded form.

Photo care of Flickr / user Zaigee.