The Second

Animal Collective Sung Tongs (Big Cat) These lads love their kitties, making them fertile enjoyment for all cat people/acid poppers the world over. They are sweet, cute and have silly stage personas through which they make a kind of new pop or post pop racket that seems indebted to practically every major stylistic pop shift over the last 40 years, but I'll just stick with rubbin' my belly and talkin' in my sleep as I explore this whirlin' dervish of aural revelry. Who cares where it came from? IT IS HERE.

"Leaf House" sounds like some sort of mutant art deco pop collage with incredible layered vocal chants, warbles and friendly how-do-you-do's? peppered throughout its tingling/thumping expanse. "Who Could Win a Rabbit" is fake hillbilly folk-pop, very mountainous and giggly. Much of the rest of the way, as on the crawling dream pop of "The Softest Voice" and the extended gastrointestinal droneland of "Visiting Friends," the lads embody some of the dreamiest headphones ready mind massage heard since George Harrison murmured about his friends losing their way on "Bluejay Way." Rarely does a record combine this kind of energy with a constant narcotic haze to such consistently thrilling effect. This is an album to blur the boundaries of genres, dimensions...emotions. Fans of Smile era Beach Boys, Krautrock, drum circles, hiphop and dream machines need to pry this pandora's box open sooner than later.