Animal Collective - Feels

Feels is Animal Collective at their most transcendent: from ‘Flesh Canoe’’s swooping clatter of electric guitar strings and Eric Satie-esque piano burps to the quietly devastating revelations of 'Banshee Beat', a song that unravels amidst Avey Tare's heartbroken admissions and Panda Bear's scuttling sticks, this is the sound of a band proclaiming it wants to be something more. The sense of ambition reaches a climax on tumultuous album-closer ‘Turn Into Something’ – a song that in many ways feels like a precursor to 2009’s ‘Brother Sport’. Call it their crossover album if you will, but with Feels AC’s star grew into something altogether more life-affirming and vital than anything experimental music had given us before. (Daniel Greenwood)