Panda Bear ‎– Tomboy

Got the clear vinyl + T-shirt bundle a week or two after record store day. Plays fine.

Over the last decade Panda Bear has made quite a name for himself in the independent music scene. Successful work both with Animal Collective and solo albums Young Prayer (2004) and critically acclaimed Person Person Pitch (2007) covering Pop, Noise, Ambient and everything in between. With such a prolific background and the hype built around singles from Tomboy, it’s impossible not to have high expectations.

Tomboy opens with the second single released “You Can Count on Me”. This short, heavily layered and laid back song is a great introduction to the album. Typical of Panda’s songs, the lyrics are simple and revolve around his family: this song seemingly about his newborn child. Strong, pounding Hip-Hop/Dub drums work as the base for the following songs “Tomboy” and “Slow Motion”, focused around strong rhythmic guitar strumming and delay-drenched vocals. Tracks like “Surfer’s Hymn” and “Last Night at the Jetty” allow Panda Bear to re-use his famous Beach Boys-esque vocal melodies which (with the lack of multi-tracking) his live bootlegs were deprived from. In the tracks “Drone” and “Scheherazade” Panda Bear manages to work in echoy vocals over the heavy synth and pianos - a trait that is typically left out of drone songs. However the album seems to trail off towards the end with the last few lacking structure and direction. And while “Benfica” is a perfect end to the album, I can’t help but think many listeners will have lost interest by this point.

If you were to look at it as a standard Pop/Rock album it would probably blow most people away, but as Panda’s last album was so ground-breaking this just seems a little weaker.

4/5.