Animal Collective Feels
Animal Collective's Feels unfolds as a sun-warmed, slightly strange collection that many critics call a high point in the band's evolution from experimental folk-pop toward psychedelic pop. Across professional reviews, the record earns praise for its ritualistic pop instincts and textured arrangements, and its stronges
Banshee Beat is the album’s emotional and structural high point, balancing experiment and conventional songcraft.
The album’s core strengths are moments of calm and clearer lyrics, but uneven sequencing undermines coherence.
Best for listeners looking for nostalgia and summer vs autumn, starting with Banshee Beat and Bees.
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See how Feels stacks up against Merriweather Post Pavilion on Chorus's 0-100 critic-consensus scale, including review depth and standout tracks.
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Full consensus notes
Animal Collective's Feels unfolds as a sun-warmed, slightly strange collection that many critics call a high point in the band's evolution from experimental folk-pop toward psychedelic pop. Across professional reviews, the record earns praise for its ritualistic pop instincts and textured arrangements, and its strongest moments - notably “Banshee Beat”, “Did You See the Words” and “Bees” - recur as the best songs on Feels in critics' best-of lists. The quick verdict from the critical consensus: thoughtful, adventurous work that rewards repeated listens while keeping one foot in the band's more eccentric tendencies.
The critical consensus, reflected in an 80.35/100 score compiled from 20 professional reviews, highlights a tension between experimental textures and clear songcraft. Reviewers consistently praise layered vocals, tribal percussion and pastoral reveries that give tracks like “Banshee Beat” and “Flesh Canoe” their undulating, hypnotic power. At the same time, some critics point to uneven sequencing and moments where shouting or exuberant whimsy unsettles pacing - an observation that explains why opinions range from effusive to reserved across the reviews. Several outlets single out “Did You See the Words” and “Bees” as examples of how ambience and melody can coexist without surrendering the band's weirdness.
Taken together, Feels emerges as a record of contrasts: childlike joy and tender intimacy, pastoral folk touches and dense, psychedelic atmospherics. For readers searching for an authoritative Feels review or wondering if the album is worth listening to, the critical reception suggests it is a rewarding, occasionally divisive landmark in Animal Collective's catalog that contains multiple standout tracks worth repeated attention.
Critics' Top Tracks
The standout songs that made critics take notice
Banshee Beat
6 mentions
"open chords are strummed repeatedly for longer than seems necessary to create a unique sense of tension relieved only by vocal chants and howls"— Pitchfork
Bees
3 mentions
"The two transitional songs in the record's middle, “Bees” and “Banshee Beat,” are among the best things Animal Collective has done."— Pitchfork
Did You See the Words
4 mentions
"It’s apparent from the first few bars of “Did You See the Words” that A.C. begins in “song” mode"— Pitchfork
open chords are strummed repeatedly for longer than seems necessary to create a unique sense of tension relieved only by vocal chants and howls
Track Ratings
How critics rated each track, relative to this album (0-100). Only tracks that made critics feel something are rated.
Did You See the Words
Grass
Flesh Canoe
The Purple Bottle
Bees
Banshee Beat
Daffy Duck
Loch Raven
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What Critics Are Saying
Deep insights from 20 critics who reviewed this album
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Critic's Take
Animal Collective sound like they have bottled summer on Feels, and the best songs on Feels - notably “Grass” and “Banshee Beat” - capture that sunlit, slightly deranged joy. The reviewer's tone stays affectionate and precise, celebrating how “Grass” squeezes deranged screaming and pounding drums into one of the best pop songs of the year, while “Banshee Beat” is praised as the album climax, an eight minute bloom that balances experiment and convention. Elsewhere “Flesh Canoe” and “The Purple Bottle” are singled out for their slow-motion tenderness and tribal, silly meaning; together these tracks explain why listeners ask about the best tracks on Feels. The voice here is intimate, wistful and packed with detail, making the case for these songs as the album's true highlights.
Key Points
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Banshee Beat is the album’s emotional and structural high point, balancing experiment and conventional songcraft.
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Feels blends sunlit nostalgia and experimental folk-pop, yielding moments of tenderness and ecstatic, chant-driven payoff.
Themes
Critic's Take
Animal Collective‘s Feels rewards repeated listens, and the best tracks show why: “Bees” floats like an Alice Coltrane dream and “Banshee Beat” reaches an apotheosis of their repeated-chord tension. Richardson praises how jaunty songs such as “Did You See the Words” and “The Purple Bottle” make the band feel rooted in rock history even as later pieces dissolve into texture. The review reads as a close study of sequencing, arguing that the record’s carefully arranged first half and amorphous back half yield the album’s richest moments.
Key Points
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“Bees” stands out for its Alice Coltrane-like textures and is paired with “Banshee Beat” as the album’s emotional apex.
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Feels balances tuneful, rock-rooted first-half songs with an amorphous, texture-driven back half, showcasing sequencing and textural composition as core strengths.
Themes
Critic's Take
Animal Collective’s Feels feels like a deliberate pivot, part pop oddity and part tribal experiment, with the best tracks revealing that blend. The opener “Did You See the Words” sets the tone with grotesque, vivid first-verse imagery that announces the album’s strange charms. “Grass” stands out for its spastic, chorus-driven noise segments that turn a pop framework inside out. Meanwhile “Bees” and “Banshee Beat” act as the album’s hinge, marrying atmospherics and introspection to make them two of the best songs on Feels by design and effect.
Key Points
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Bees is best for its immersive atmospherics and repeated vocal descent that define the album's unique mood.
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The album’s core strengths are its split between upbeat songcraft and contemplative ambient pieces, and its willingness to push weird song structures.
Themes
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Critic's Take
Animal Collective's Feels front-loads its best tracks and never lets the momentum drop, with “Did You See the Words”, “Grass” and especially “Banshee Beat” standing out. The reviewer's voice luxuriates in the album's shamanistic chants and layered melodies, praising how “Did You See the Words” opens with twinkling pianos and chanted call and response, while “Grass” surprises with straight indie rock grit folded into banshee screams. But it is “Banshee Beat” that the critic crowns the album's best song, describing its patient build, whispered vulnerability and triumphant, howling climax. The narrative holds that these best tracks reveal Feels as pop songs steeped in ritual, making it one of the year's most singular records.
Key Points
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“Banshee Beat” is the album's high point for its slow-building structure, emotional urgency and triumphant climax.
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Feels' core strengths are its layered vocal harmonies and ritualistic pop that transform simple songs into otherworldly experiences.
Themes
Critic's Take
Animal Collective stretch their innate poppiness on Feels, and the best tracks illustrate that adventurous joy. The reviewer lingers on “The Purple Bottle” as an exquisite exploration of falling in love, and highlights “Banshee Beat” and “Flesh Canoe” for their hypnotic textures and vocal turns. Language like "a giddy rush of lust and longing" and descriptions of songs that "writhe like snakes" signal why these are often cited as the best tracks on Feels. This is an album where instrumental variety and Tare's impulsive vocals make the standout songs both tender and thrilling.
Key Points
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The Purple Bottle is the best song for its vivid portrayal of falling in love and Tare's intoxicating vocal delivery.
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Feels excels through instrumental variety, adventurous arrangements, and the balance of tender lullabies with exuberant pop.
Themes
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Critic's Take
Animal Collective retain a sense of childlike joy on Feels, and the best tracks here underline that adventurous mood. The reviewer's voice lingers on “Grass”, which sounds like Brian Eno on mescaline, and on “The Purple Bottle”, praised for its mix of whimsy and ambience. Those two songs act as the album's high points, where winding refrains, Beach Boys chorales and tribal drums coalesce into something vividly alive. Even when a few cuts merely drift, Feels offers hope to young bands wanting to make beautiful noise without coloring inside the lines.
Key Points
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The best song is "Grass" because its winding, beatific refrain and mescaline-tinged production make it the album's clearest high point.
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The album's core strength is combining playful, childlike joy with experimental textures to make beautiful, boundary-pushing noise.
Themes
Critic's Take
Animal Collective’s Feels frustrates as often as it delights, and the reviewer’s impatience with the band’s shouting and capricious sequencing comes through plainly. The best tracks on Feels are the calmer cuts - “Banshee Beat” and “Loch Raven” - which the critic praises for their undulating, layered cues and comfortable languor. By contrast, upbeat moments like “Grass” and “The Purple Bottle” feel bombastically cheery and jarring, making the album uneven rather than transcendent. The narrative holds that Feels contains kernels of the band’s older work, but overall lacks a coherent musical plan.
Key Points
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The best song(s) are the slower, layered tracks like "Banshee Beat" which create comfortable languor.
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The album’s core strengths are moments of calm and clearer lyrics, but uneven sequencing undermines coherence.