Album of the Week: Panda Bear Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper

Have you ever stared at a piece of abstract art for a long time? The way images and colors blend and blur into each other, some shapes standing out while others only appear after multiple viewings – that's the way Noah Lennox, better known as Animal Collective's Panda Bear, works with music. 
The first words we hear on the his latest is Lennox chanting "Get just what you need/Just what/ Want more than you need/Want more" over a droning organ line and trickling percussion. The track sounds like a Beach Boys song run through a water fountain, and is a pretty good indicator of what the rest of the album is going to do.

Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, is a messy, gorgeous trip into a dense sonic landscape that offers numerous rewards to repeat listens, but may be too complex for the casual listener - in other words, typical of Panda Bear and Animal Collective.

Animal Collective has always channeled Brian Wilson in hyper-drive, with their harmony work and experimental – often discordant – sonics. For better or worse, Panda Bear has always stuck with this format in his numerous solo recordings but he often expands it, bringing in elements of electronic and classical music.

When this mishmash works, like on the glorious "Crosswords," it works like gang-busters. Lennox uses squelches and an electronic beat to dig into your subconscious and stay there. It's one of the warmest songs on the album – and one of the best.

The heavy synths and beats of Kanye West's Yeezus have been a springboard for a lot of experimental artists and it's the perfect paint for Lennox to use throughout the album, whether it's on the swirling echo chamber of voices that is "Boys Latin" or "Come to Your Senses" - the first Panda Bear cut that if someone played it in a club, I would not be remotely surprised.

In a head-to-head tie for the most gorgeous thing here is "Tropic of Cancer," which packs an additional wallop when you pay attention to the lyrics – Lennox is singing about a family member taken ill and refusing to deal with what that means – and "Lonely Wanderer," which takes a Franz Liszt style piano swirl and uses it to devastating effect.

As the title implies, there's darkness just behind the beauty on the album, whether it's the creeping electronic flourishes and sudden heavy chords on "Lonely Wanderer" or the lyrics of closer "Acid Wash," which references a battle against "the deep," "the chasm" and "the dark."

Unlike Flying Lotus' wildly successful examination of death on last year's You're Dead! what (if anything) Lennox is trying to say about the topic gets lost in too many ideas. He's throwing ideas against the wall here and not everything that sticks is worth keeping.

"Mr Noah," the bizarre first single, features a beat made up of what sounds like dogs barking and yowling (think a full blown version by the sons of bitches behind this gem) and "Selfish Gene" is a little to 80's-heavy to get any traction.

The through line on the album is not Lennox's thoughts on death and raging against the dying of the light, however much that may be the aim. The real unifying aspect is the beauty laced through everything – even in the most discordant, jarring tracks Lennox manages to dig up a gorgeous vocal delivery, use some instrument to create an unheard-of-before sound or use relatively simple lyrics to create a devastating turn of phrase.

Like abstract art, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper isn't going to be for everyone, but for those entranced by the work, it offers a deep dive into a mind teeming with ideas.

Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper is out on Domino.