New Animal Collective Due Late Nov.

Five song EP to serve as stopgap release while we wait for next full-length.

By Blurt Staff

Animal Collective are set to release a new five track studio EP on November 23rd 2009 (digitally) and 15th December (physically).

Titled Fall Be Kind, it was recorded by Ben Allen at Sweet Tea in Oxford, MS in February 2008 and at Mission Sound in Brooklyn, NY August 2009. The EP includes recent live favorites "Graze" and "What Would I Want? Sky" (featuring the first ever licensed Grateful Dead sample). 

The EP comes less than one year after the band's acclaimed album Merriweather Post Pavilion which wowed fans and critics across the globe. Your friendly neighborhood BLURT - mindful of the hype that's surrounded the band of late - offered a positive, if somewhat cautionary assessment, writing:

Merriweather Post Pavilion may be the most hyped album by a band few people have ever heard of. Before it was even officially released, bloggers were proclaiming it the best album of 2009. In this case, you can believe the hype - well, most of it anyway. Merriweather is a very strong album and another step forward for an already-terrific band. But it's not quite a masterpiece. What Animal Collective has done is combine the electronics, psychedelia and tribal rhythms of its previous records with the Beach-Boys-In-Space sound of band member Panda Bear's 2007 solo album Person Pitch. The result is an album that's both experimental and accessible, a rare feat. But like Person Pitch, there are times when Merriweather is too focused on a sound or mood, instead of on actual songs. For every "Summertime Clothes," which could be played on Top 40 radio in an alternate universe, there are other tracks that, while always interesting, tend to run together. In other words, it's an album well worth owning. Just don't sell your copy of Pet Sounds for it.

With that in mind, keep your eyes peeled for a review of the new EP around the time of the digital release. We've been listening to it over the past week and thumbs are definitely up so far.

Track Listing:

1 - Graze
2 - What Would I Want? Sky
3 - Bleed
4 - On a Highway
5 - I Think I Can