-
9.5
83737
9.5 |
The 405
This is a lush, intellectual and brilliant collection, constantly teeming with sounds, innovations and ideas
Read Review
-
8.8
83814
8.8 |
Earbuddy
It clocks in at a lean 41 minutes with no second wasted
Read Review
-
8.3
83746
8.3 |
Pretty Much Amazing
Where it lacks wild-eyed adventurousness, it compensates with clarity and focus. Offerings of pure pop pleasure are offset with healthy doses of weirdness. It’s a sincere, exciting and excitable album that successfully adds by subtracting
Read Review
-
8.0
83739
8.0 |
Slant Magazine
For both its earnest, uninhibited sense of play and impeccable pop, Painting With is a uniquely affecting album
Read Review
-
8.0
83736
8.0 |
Spin
It’s poppier, in a characteristically warped way, than even Merriweather, the group’s most popular album to date
Read Review
-
8.0
83741
8.0 |
The Skinny
It's the sound of a band refreshed
Read Review
-
8.0
83742
8.0 |
Uncut
Like true postmodernists, Animal Collective are making it up as they go along, and they're never boring
Read Review
-
8.0
83754
8.0 |
The List
It may have been 15 years, but the band continue to demonstrate their creativity and thirst for adventure with every release
Read Review
-
8.0
83756
8.0 |
Loud And Quiet
If ‘Painting With’ isn’t a leap into the unknown, it is certainly a confident step forward
Read Review
-
8.0
83819
8.0 |
NOW
Although the album revels in its sonic clutter, there are tracks scattered throughout to catch your breath
Read Review
-
8.0
83886
8.0 |
All Music
Undeniably great sounding, the record puts Animal Collective's brightest colors forward and, if history is any indication, is no predictor whatsoever of what they may do next
Read Review
-
8.0
83994
8.0 |
Evening Standard
Their previous group effort, Centipede Hz from 2012, was heavy and confusing. This time they promise “No B.S, get in, get out material” and it’s a delight
Read Review
-
8.0
83995
8.0 |
DIY
An album about doing away with boundaries, escaping definition, and running riot
Read Review
-
8.0
84281
8.0 |
Gig Soup
Its frenzied nature prevents ‘Painting With’ from being hung alongside their best work, but it remains a colourful and energetic addition to their discography nonetheless
Read Review
-
7.5
84252
7.5 |
Beardfood
The hyperactive psychedelica and hypnotizing chants can blow your mind
Read Review
-
7.5
83887
7.5 |
A.V. Club
Animal Collective is capable of crafting self-serious, masterful records; Painting With shows that the group is perhaps even better at making something meaningful when it loosens up
Read Review
-
7.5
83876
7.5 |
Consequence Of Sound
Throughout the album, Avey Tare and Panda Bear wrap their voices together into a call-and-response interplay. While this effect may initially disorient listeners, it becomes meditative and natural
Read Review
-
7.5
83745
7.5 |
The Line Of Best Fit
In a world where you can see the colour of gravitational waves an album like this is not out of place – it’s a work of great weight and a masterpiece of colour
Read Review
-
7.0
83878
7.0 |
Spectrum Culture
Animal Collective has succeeded in both making a mind-bending, wacky trip of a record
Read Review
-
7.0
83982
7.0 |
Rolling Stone
Animal Collective strip away the reverb, hit the accelerator on a delightfully absurd LP
Read Review
-
6.2
83748
6.2 |
Pitchfork
Painting With was the first time the band jumped right into the studio. Work can be scheduled, magic can't
Read Review
-
6.0
83750
6.0 |
PopMatters
Painting With is unmistakably an Animal Collective album, but in its eager familiarity, it ultimately neglects the one all-important quality of any Animal Collective record: novelty
Read Review
-
6.0
83740
6.0 |
The Music
While the kaleidoscopic haze of Vertical echoes some of their career highs, Painting With rarely matches their dizzying, optimistic triumphs such as Merriweather Post Pavilion
Read Review
-
6.0
83743
6.0 |
Q
Devotees will likely be delighted. Print edition only
-
6.0
83744
6.0 |
Mojo
For all their organic methods, these Animals often come across as robotic and constricted. Print edition only
-
6.0
83738
6.0 |
The Guardian
The devotees will doubtless be more devoted than ever after listening to it, objectors can still find plenty of reason to object, and perhaps that’s what the band want
Read Review
-
6.0
83734
6.0 |
The Observer
It’s not quite Taylor Swift, but Painting With, AnCo’s 10th, seeks to distil everything the band do into sugar-rush form
Read Review
-
6.0
83735
6.0 |
musicOMH
They’ve made an authentically psychotropic, kaleidoscopic trip of a record: brace yourself and beware the come-down
Read Review
-
6.0
83874
6.0 |
Tiny Mix Tapes
The songs here offer glimpses of hope that there is plenty of magic and power left in these humans, that the future holds another singular release from their camp
Read Review
-
6.0
83758
6.0 |
The Arts Desk
There’s plenty of colour in these art-themed pieces, but any self-respecting Dadaist would demand much more disruption to the slightly samey mood
Read Review
-
6.0
83815
6.0 |
Exclaim
They've lost the collaborative, intersectional sound that's always provided a sense of humanity heart at the centre of Animal Collective
Read Review
-
6.0
83893
6.0 |
The Irish Times
Structured, short, direct yet tainted with a nagging sense of incompletion
Read Review
-
6.0
83931
6.0 |
The FT
It’s a tiring kind of fun
Read Review
-
6.0
84038
6.0 |
God Is In The TV
The overlapping hopping vocals remain. So do the jumpy compositions that grow in suffocating layers
Read Review
-
6.0
84044
6.0 |
Resident Advisor
For sure, Animal Collective still have plenty of whimsical creativity left in them, but on Painting With they mostly color inside the lines
Read Review
-
6.0
84056
6.0 |
Clash
A record that has moments of brilliance but by virtue of trying to be a novelty record, actually comes closer to being a rehash of their previous work
Read Review
-
6.0
83978
6.0 |
No Ripcord
All in all, Painting With feels just far too interpolated, and even familiar, to truly grasp, though through its failures it manages to somehow bring them one step closer to achieving those awe-inspiring moments of yore
Read Review
-
6.0
84517
6.0 |
State
Long term fans may be able to pick up nuances due to a change in production, but for the rest this is an album on which you’ll already made your mind up
Read Review
-
5.0
83937
5.0 |
Drowned In Sound
Feels like a band boffinishly determined to experiment with making iterations on one sort of song, because that's the thing that interested them the most at the time
Read Review
-
5.0
83747
5.0 |
Crack
Doubling up on everything that’s divisive about their music, Painting With discards the spacious arrangements and restraint of previous album Centipede Hz in favour of lightning-paced chaos
Read Review
-
3.0
85300
3.0 |
Under The Radar
Painting With is by a distance the most annoying album you'll hear this year, and not just because it sounds exactly how those people imagine the band always has
Read Review
-
3.0
83979
3.0 |
The Quietus
By their nature experiments often fail - and this nightmare of airless forced fun emphasises the point in garish capital letters
Read Review
-