Feelsfell in the middle of Animal Collectives extraordinary ascent in the early 2000s from indie experimentalists to one of contemporary musics most original and influential artists; it followed the bands 2004 breakthrough albumSung Tongsand preceded the records that would propel them to mainstream success, 2007sStrawberry Jamand 2009sMerriweather Post Pavilion.

Recorded in Seattle with engineer Scott Colburn, Feels saw Animal Collective return to a quartet with Josh Deakin Dibb and Brian Geologist Weitz after Dave Avey Tare Portner and Noah Panda Bear Lennox recordedSung Tongsas a duo. Upon its release, Entertainment Weekly calledFeelsbreathlessly giddy and shamelessly trippy, adding, Somewhere up there, John Lennon and Timothy Leary are grinning. Feels gives hope to young bands who want to make beautiful noise but refuse to color within the lines, wrote Rolling Stone. Pitchfork would eventually name the album one of the best of the 2000s, hailing its sense of exuberance as big and as purposeless as a forest, sometimes joyfully savage and sometimes softly haunting, but always beyond genre or strategy or intention. Above all, it is what Animal Collective do with their voices here that astounds: whispering, shrieking, muttering, pleading, sighing, their sprite-like presence is somehow thoroughly alien and yet unnervingly intimate.

Format / LP
Released / 10/17/2025
Catalogue / REWIGLP-197
Barcode / 887830019712
Artist / Animal Collective
Label / Domino
Genre / Pop / Rock