Animal Collective have described Painting With as their ‘Ramones record’.

It certainly marks a stark stylistic departure from 2012’s brain-scrambling Centipede Hz.

Recorded after the three-year lay-off, the Baltimore quartet’s tenth long-player was assembled with the vague intention of simplifying the AC sound – there is no reverb while the squiggly instrumental washes with which they have become synonymous are conspicuously absent.

It’s not exactly ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ – but, contrasted with the group’s catalogue, the songs here are punchy and super-condensed (with cameos from John Cale and avant-garde instrumentalist Colin Stetson). Consider opener ‘House of FloriDada’, a quirky electro-bopper apparently inspired by a disapproval of people from Florida.

Elsewhere,the zany quotient remains high: the yammering ‘Hocus Pocus’ is as full-pedal bonkers as the title suggest; and on the manically pogoing ‘Spilling Guts’ and ‘Summing The Wretch’, Animal Collective appear to be on a mission to frighten away the last of the casual fans that flocked to 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. Fair play to them...

Out February 19.

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