Underground Intersections

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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Brooklyn-based Animal Collective combines whimsical musings on nature and post-hippie folk with avantrock of a higher than usual pedigree. A few years ago Arto Lindsay invited them to collaborate for a track on his album, “Invoke,” and earlier this year they cut an EP with Vashti Bunyan after having met her during a tour stop in Edinburgh in 2003. But Animal Collective is just part of a circle of like-minded groups – including Black Dice and Lightning Bolt – that have proved to be some of the most promising, popular underground bands around.

The three groups have more than newly released albums in common. Animal Collective shares rehearsal space with arty noiseniks Black Dice, with whom they often tour. Animal Collective came together in high school; Black Dice emerged from the Rhode Island School of Design in the mid-’90s, almost simultaneously with Lightning Bolt. Lightning Bolt’s bassist, Brian Gibson, even played bass in an early version of Animal Collective, while former Black Dice drummer Hisham Bharoocha played in Lightning Bolt early on. Stylistically, Animal Collective and Lightning Bolt are the most similar and experimental-minded without being offputting. Both have a joyful-noise/feelgood approach and have been known to wear masks and costumes onstage.

Animal Collective’s last effort, “Sung Tongs,” was mostly acoustic and lightweight; “Feels” (Fat Cat) is decidedly electric and dark-hued. The pretty melodies on “Feels” are accompanied by a swarm of vocal overdubs that recall not only the Beach Boys at their loopiest (“Smile” or “Love You”) but the inner chatter of a multiphrenic. Structurally, they’re packed with detail; not only do the songs have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but each of these sections seems to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Still, Animal Collective’s songs are not overly complicated; most linger around two to three chords at most. The first three tracks on “Feels” stay within the eccentric pop framework that aging college radio listeners would probably associate with Robyn Hitchcock, though the instrumental backings are far more experimental – the 21st-century equivalent, really, of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. The center of the album is four long-ish songs (six to eight minutes each) that find an eerie underbelly to the band’s playfulness. “Bees” is a standout; built on a scraping, harp-like string ripple, the chorus is a descending string of “The bees, the bees, the bees, the bees, the bees, the bees, the bees” that finally lands in an inchoate mumble that may simply be another “the bees” slowed down to oblivion. Also of note is “Loch Raven,” a simply haunting song with whispery vocals and ghostly piano work.

On “Hypermagic Mountain” (Load), their fourth album (also out last week), Lightning Bolt’s drum and bass duo play hardcore tempos and feature two-handed riffing that sounds like Philip Glass and Eddie Van Halen melted down into a power shake. Brian Gibson’s bass playing, always powerful and noisy, now sounds like thrash metal guitar; drummer Brian Chippendale’s occasional vocals, which once resembled a characterization out of “South Park” and sounded like they were recorded over the phone, are now echo-drenched with a more full-bodied tone, even sounding like the Fall’s Mark E. Smith in spots.

In the past, Lightning Bolt was able to do more with less; a song would zoom into overdrive merely by Gibson stepping on an effect pedal. While it’s good to see them pushing their songwriting over the one-or-two-riff cliff, they’ve sacrificed a bit of the hypnotic high-energy groove they were able to generate with those super-simple jams. For more of that, check out the new CD by Mindflayer (a duo of Chippendale and Forcefield’s Mat Brinkman), “Expedition to the Hairier Peaks” (Corleone).

Black Dice began as a noisy thrash outfit, that soon gave way to a focus on swirling electronics; the results sounded like a cross between the Boredoms and their old Providence cohorts Forcefield. This sound crystallized on 2002’s “Beaches & Canyons”; afterward, they dismissed Bharoocha and continued as a three-piece of electronics and guitar. After 2004’s somewhat transitional “Creature Comforts,” they now return with “Broken Ear Record” (DFA/Astralwerks).

Here the wordless vocals have gotten more and more off the wall,in contrast to the high lonesome drones on “Beaches”; the addition of synthesized beats recall their other associates on the NYC scene, Gang Gang Dance. The most successful track is the last, “Motorcycle,” on which they finally achieve a primitive stance worthy of the legendary ESP-Disk group the Godz, with tribal percussion, whoops, chants, and shambling post-Beefheart guitar. The rest lacks the balance of assault and bliss of their best work; fans of Paul Hardcastle’s 1980s hit “Nineteen,” however, might well groove to the stuttering samples of “Street Dude.”

Black Dice play Irving Plaza on Friday (17 Irving Place, 212-777-6800); Animal Collective play Webster Hall on November 20 (125 E. 11th Street, 212-353-1600).


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