Animal Collective go pop, and even Kanye listens in

Last week, Kanye West posted the video for the Animal Collective single "My Girls" to his blog, kanyeuniversecity.com. It's easy to hear why Yeezy gave the cut a nod: One could imagine "Love Lockdown" segueing into "My Girls" at a club. Both tracks hit with deep bass, primal bursts of percussion and infectious melodies. The energetic synth line and shimmering production of "My Girls" even recalls "Flashing Lights." It's hard to imagine that this shiny pop nugget is coming from the same band that only five years ago released an album with a 12-minute track consisting of one strummed acoustic guitar chord.Animal Collective have always been pretty "out there." The members even go by pseudonyms: Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Deakin (Josh Dibb) and Geologist (Brian Weitz). For the first half of its career, the group leaned toward the avant-garde, mostly experimenting with textures and soundscapes. The peaceful "Campfire Songs" (2003) features 45 minutes of bare acoustic droning. Another 2003 release, "Here Comes the Indian," takes the opposite approach: It actually sounds like the work of animals, with extended rambling murmurs and explosive freak-outs punctuated by screams, yelps, dog whimpers and tribal chants. No one would have tagged the group as "pop" then.

The band veered in a new direction with "Sung Tongs" (2004) and "Feels" (2005), flirting with complex rhythms and beginning to rein in their loose, free-form tendencies. The much-acclaimed "Strawberry Jam" (2007) tightened the Collective's songs into more conventional structures and introduced electronic influences to distinguish further their already distinct sound. With "Merriweather Post Pavilion," though, the band marries these disparate tendencies, distilling them into a shiny, gooey pop gem.

Gooey? Well, yes. At times "Merriweather" is a swamp of sound, with melodies bubbling and vocals warbling through some incredibly thick production. The primordial atmospheres of "Here Comes the Indian" now congeal into molasses, and the Afropop beats of "Feels" and "Strawberry Jam" are now muddled in persistent, pounding bass lines. "Taste" layers a skittering arpeggiator over a deep bass riff and a tribal drum pattern, all amid rippling, interweaving melodies.

All tracks take a similar approach, topping heavy bass with climbing harmonies, sputtering keyboards and complex percussion. For that, "Merriweather" is an incredibly dense record, both sonically and conceptually. Often a track layers four or five different rhythms at the same time, managing somehow to sound both composed and totally unhinged. Closer "Brothersport" rattles dangerously from rhythm to rhythm while building five samples over each other; the song increases in intensity before a delicious release three minutes in.

Dibb, the band's second guitarist, is absent on the album, and this lack is certainly felt. Guitar chords are traded for glitchy samples and jittery keyboards, giving "Merriweather" a sense of urgency and restlessness. But while the Collective's textures and soundscapes have changed from acoustic to electronic, from psychedelic folk to techno-inspired pop, "Merriweather" is surprisingly the band's warmest and most inviting work to date. At first listen, "Summertime Clothes" sounds like an awkward attempt at industrial, with an abrasive synth line and a mechanical bass thump. But when the chorus unravels and both Lennox and Portner lift the harmony to gospel heights, one can only melt at their sweet, insistent line, "I want to walk around with you." The music follows these gushing feelings throughout the album, as the Collective seem to push the music to reach their own emotional heights. "My Girls," easily the most addictive track, pairs climbing harmonies with Portner's lyrics: "I don't mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status / I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls." On "Bluish," Portner whispers to his lover, "Put on the dress that I like / It makes me so crazy, though I can't say why." Whereas the group's lyrics were once dense, abstract and nonsensical, on "Merriweather," the Collective take pleasure in the small things, painting gorgeous portraits of domestic life with words and music.

It's these peaks that keep "Merriweather" exciting and the more subtle moments that allow for an appreciation of such heights. That said, the middle section of the album drags for too long and feels sluggish after the climaxes of the record's first side. Despite the strengths of "Bluish," "Guys Eyes" and "Taste," it's not until the buoyant "Lion in a Coma" that things speed up again.

There's been criticism of the band for selling out, "taming" their animal instincts. But looking at "Merriweather," there's no evidence of any domesticating. Of course, there are no yelps, no screams, no freak-outs and no tribal chanting over dense guitar patterns. The screams have been polished into harmonies, the random wild outbursts channeled into measured highs and lows, the dense structures and lyrics reshaped into, dare I say, pop. On "Merriweather Post Pavilion," Animal Collective are far from caged. But at least now they don't bite.

Pros: Strong hooks, catchy melodies and interesting production; "My Girls," "Brothersport," and "Summertime Clothes" will have the listener humming for days.