Animal Collective: Water Curses

Since the start of their rise to the top of the art-rock

underground, the beatific chums in Animal Collective have warbled, wheezed,

whinged, and wowed—all in alternating currents that make each album and

EP sound like a relic from an age they've already consigned to the past. It's

made for an admirable custom of closing the book to start the binding on a new

one, but Water Curses suggests a better

practice by working as both a summation and a start. The four-track EP hints

back at last year's Strawberry Jam,

but the songs are more melodic and spacious—more patient in making way

for whatever drifts in. The calypso-tinged title track finds Avey Tare singing

double-time over air-headed drums, while "Cobwebs" and "Seal Eying" rate more

as mesmeric hymns. The highlight is "Street Flash," an Avey Tare song built

around a meticulously employed sample of a scream that signals either blinding

terror or a thousand kinds of joy—or, better yet, both.