Panda Bear – Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper – (Domino)
DMC World Magazine
Panda Bear – a quarter of the much-loved Animal Collective – has always been about musical exploration. Although he’s very modest about it, he likes to push boundaries where possible, hence the inclusion of ‘Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper’ in these pages. His fifth album as Panda Bear finds Noah Lennox alternating hip hop and dub influences to telling affect in the tender ‘Crosswords’, as well as including them alongside a number of other styles. ‘Lonely Wanderer’ and ‘Tropic of Cancer’, for instance, are more meditative, the latter really moving in its use of the ‘last post’. The starry eyed and reverb-heavy ‘Butcher Baker Candlestick Maker’ and ‘Boys Latin’ work really well, playing with the stereo picture as well as packing the music with catchy hooks. This is Panda Bear’s most emotional album to date, and benefits from the extra feeling in songs that have real staying power.
