

Ditching the warped acoustic approach of Sung Tongs and Campfire Songs, Feels finds Animal Collective getting as close as they’ve ever been to sounding like a conventional rock band—which is still a trans-galactic flight or two away. Opening with a shimmering, psychedelic take on campground hootenannies (“Did You See the Words”), it's an album (as its title suggests) of passions, be they romantic (the ecstatic Jungle Book swing of “Grass”), nostalgic (the echoing, bittersweet “Banshee Beat”) or plain existential (“Turn Into Something”)—all as beautiful and big-hearted as they are impossibly strange.