Time Skiffs’ nine songs are love letters, distress signals, en plein air observations, and relaxation hymns, the collected transmissions of four people who have grown into relationships and parenthood and adult worry. But they are rendered with Animal Collective’s singular sense of exploratory wonder. Harmonies so rich you want to skydive through their shared air, textures so fascinating you want to decode their sorcery, rhythms so intricate you want to untangle their sources. Here is Animal Collective nearing 20, still in search of what’s next.

Animal Collective’s playful experimentations are back! Although the album tackles issues like climate change, sonically it still has a ‘return-to-high-school energy’ as Josh Dibb puts it. The same kind of energy they had when I first became obsessed with them as a teenager – the same kind of energy I crave now. FFO: Panda Bear, Avey Tare, Caribou, Four Tet.

By Martha