Album Review: Panda Bear - Tomboy

An NME journalist once wrote that if he ever heard another band that sounded like The Beach Boys he would scream. Melodramatic shrieks aside, his point was not entirely misplaced: after all, Pet Sounds – wonderful musical landmark that it is – is a record that has spawned perhaps more inferior imitations than any other. Think of The Thrills' learned-by-rote approximation of heritage pop or R.E.M.’s watery Reveal album, to pick just two examples, and you’d be forgiven for thinking Brian Wilson’s masterpiece has been mined for all its worth, and then some.
 
Thank god, then, for Noah Lennox’s Panda Bear, the extended side-project that shows there’s still plenty of life to be breathed into this classic pop template. Tomboy is the long-overdue follow-up to 2007's Person Pitch, an outstanding record that's still seen by many as the finest release to date from within the Animal Collective stable, and in many ways it’s an equally lovely thing. If Lennox’s parent band have endeavoured to shake off similarly persistent Beach Boys comparisons of late, then his solo albums are doing everything they can to continue attracting them. 'Surfer’s Hymn'’s title alone is a barely-concealed nod of approval, but that’s nothing compared to the vocal melody, which is pure Wilson. Then there’s 'Last Night At The Jetty', a thing of sun-dappled beauty worthy of the great man himself: the bridge – whose lyrics are nothing more than a repetition of the words ‘I Know’ – must already go down as one of the most delightful moments committed to disc this year.
 
What might surprise some, however, is that Tomboy makes for an unusually straightforward collection, relying as it does on relatively few of the signature woozy textures or shifting soundscapes you’d readily associate with either Panda Bear or AnCo. Where Person Pitch’s melodies oozed out from the sample-based din, as if the listener were stepping back from a Monet painting to reveal the image, here everything is instantly on show. This simplicity isn’t a problem in itself: after all, although AC take pains never to repeat themselves, even since as far back as Sung Tongs, Lennox has been committed to applying a luminous pop streak to everything he’s done; but when the album's second half begins to drag slightly amid a couple of weaker tracks, it becomes clear that Panda Bear might just be working a little within his comfort zone here. As live favourite 'Benfica' winds proceedings towards a gorgeous conclusion, however, you might well decide it’s churlish to complain – though this third solo outing from Lennox may not be as revelatory a journey as Person Pitch, it will at least provide a few feel-good hits of the summer.