After heading down an experimental rabbit hole with the psychedelic "visual album" ODDSAC, Baltimore's Animal Collective deliver a proper follow-up to the acclaimed Merriweather Post Pavilion with their ninth album, Centipede Hz. The album finds the Collective assembling in their hometown to record the album together, returning to their roots and connecting via the confines of a practice space instead of sending new material back and forth. With a more traditional writing style, the album feels more cohesive and relatively structured compared to their more free-flowing work, while still maintaining the layered, freaked-out sound that fans have come to crave from the electronic tinkerers.
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (p.76) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "CENTIPEDE HZ is a touch more earthbound than we've come to expect from them -- a return to what the band calls it garage-rock 'roots'..."
Billboard (p.44) - "[F]or all of its carefully detailed arrangements, CENTIPEDE HZ also boasts a live, organic attack that makes the album sound as muscular as it is ambitious."
Q (Magazine) (p.102) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "CENTIPEDE HZ is a riot of thumping drum machines and rib-rattling bass, otherworldly synths and eerie harmonies."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.87) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "The songs feel more organic, infused with the primal live energy that dominated their earlier releases."
