We're left wondering just what happened to the band who ran the hypnotic spoken word creep-fest '#1' into the children's cartoon theme song 'Winter Wonder Land' before collapsing into the nightmarish nostalgia of 'Cuckoo Cuckoo'. Someone's stolen half of the boys' crayons. If 'Strawberry Jam' captured the band at their most technicolor, as reflected by the album's gaudy sleeve, then the predominantly beige tones of 'Painting With's cover speak volumes.
As a result far too many of these songs become melodically indistinguishable from each other and fall flat. What's dispiriting is that this potential strength is pushed too far the other way until it ends up as the project's greatest weakness runs of songs have blurred together on previous albums but never to the extent that they do here. Unfortunately, despite these honest intentions, the album can only be judged as truly successful in one regard it's certainly a more unified listen compared to 'Centipede Hz'. Indeed it's hard to imagine a title that screams 'look, we're creative, we're inclusive, we're still children at heart' more than the one that adorns this release. 'Painting With', perhaps unsurprisingly, comes across as an exercise in redressing the weaknesses of its predecessor and reconnecting with the band's inner child. For a band such as this that was an unforgivable crime and it wasn't a surprise when the album met with a distinctly muted reception. It was only upon the subsequent release of 2012's 'Centipede Hz' that a note of caution was raised the album was directionless, lacking in energy and for the first time AnCo had released material that sounded like it was a bit of a drag to write and record. Unbelievably, maturity appeared to suit them. Of course youthful exuberance fades, but to the band's great credit they made the trials of adulthood and parenting sound like just another set of adventures on latter day albums like 'Strawberry Jam' and the mainstream breakthrough 'Merriweather Post Pavilion'. Like a trip their songs were vivid, surreal, sometimes joyously extroverted, other times dark and painfully introverted. Sure there was always the faint whiff of privilege hanging in the air, their music painting pictures of a bunch of carefree dudes taking shrooms and running around in the woods naked, giggling together like the world was their very own tropical playground what always won you over was the sense of genuine wonder their music projected. The AnCo discography runs together like a coming of age story split between distinct stages of experimentation and self discovery. Review Summary: Painting With.a Much Reduced PaletteĪnimal Collective are everyone's idea of how they'd form the perfect band, a group of school friends uniting and blurring the lines between play and artistic expression, one day realising that what they're creating is special enough to share and eventually make their life's work.