Ah yes, the moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived. Tomboy dropped today. What did the critics think? Usually questions such as that one are tossed aside as people claim “Hey, just enjoy the music”. Due to Panda Bear’s heavy critical darling status, it is basically impossible to judge it without considering his previous success with Animal Collective and on his own album “Person Pitch”. I was curious as to how critics would react to his new, considerably less sprawling soundscapes or ‘songs’ as they are popularly known.
Panda Bear teased us with this album for roughly the past nine months. Countless cities were visited, with him allegedly tweaking the songs over and over again. EPs got released during this period to build up interest and anticipation. Though he said a lot of these songs were worked over again and again before becoming the album versions, I don’t personally hear a lot of difference between these versions and the EP versions. As I listen to it, it reminds me of the slight disappointment I felt when Real Estate released their album which was a collection of EPs rather than an album in the proper sense of the term. Familiarity with the EPs will dull one’s senses to the full impact of the album. If you’re reading this anyway, you’ve probably listened to these songs in EP form already.
TheNeedleDrops panned this album, giving in a ‘light 5’. Pitchfork gave it an ‘8.5’ below Panda Bear’s magnum opus “Person Pitch”, though most didn’t expect him to really beat the ‘9.4’ unless the album versions were extremely massive re-working. Most of these songs aren’t, excluding some additional reverb and sound effects. A few songs even sound weaker in their fully polished form than they did on the EPs. “Alsatian Darn” possibly my favorite song off of all the EPs, sounds weaker with this mix, as the song doesn’t hit as strongly as it did before now that excess sonic junk has been added.
What makes this a harder thing to love is the more ambient direction of a lot of the songs. “Person Pitch” had ornate structures, epic lengths, and multiple hypnotic sections. “Tomboy” feels awkward in comparison. On one hand, the lengths suggest a greater pop sense. Yet the songs are too spaced out to be considered accessible. By keeping the lengths short, Panda Bear avoids diving deep into sound like he did for “Person Pitch”. In many ways, the album appears to be a compromise between experimental and accessible, without being close enough to either side to be fully satisfying. Nothing is striking on this; the experimentation comes across more as leftover ideas than anything fully fleshed out.
Expectations ran extremely high for this release. Unlike Avey Tare, who most people didn’t bother paying attention to, Panda Bear had something of a reputation as having the most active musical life outside of Animal Collective. No doubt this release will be held up not only to Panda Bear’s previous expectations, but Animal Collective’s “Merriweather Post Pavilion”. Such comparisons, while somewhat unreasonable, are unavoidable. Since they are otherwise so close-lipped about what they do, people need to read into each release they have as guidance for what may come next.
I don’t know what is next for Panda Bear. This album had raised hopes for a great deal of people. Even while it is a good album, it is not a great album. Unfortunately people will interpret ‘good’ in this instance with the term ‘not great’ rather than accepting it as a fairly decent addition to Panda Bear’s discography. Panda Bear didn’t help things with constantly resetting the release date and killing off a great deal of buzz and goodwill of various music reviewers. Personally, I’d say listen to it yourself and form your own opinion. Reviews of this are too scatter-shot to summarize, but just don’t expect another Person Pitch.