Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks - Enter the Slasher House

Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks
Enter the Slasher House
7 April 2014
Domino

4 stars out of 5

 

Animal Collective’s Avey Tare, former Dirty Projectors member Angel Deradoorian, and former Ponytail drummer Jeremy Hyman have joined forces to create music as Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks. In case you’re wondering which of Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, or Ponytail—all incredibly enigmatic ensembles—shows through the most on Enter the Slasher House, it’s Animal Collective, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise considering it says “Avey Tare” in the freakin’ name of the band. If you can picture more of a rock sound (owing to the new bass and live drums rhythm section behind AT) to some classic AC material, then you’ve got the general idea as to what’s going on here.

The songs are dense, frantic, complex, and uncompromising, as also should be expected. Tracks like “A Sender” and “The Outlaw” are dynamic compositions that transform themselves every few bars into entities more and more remote from their first few moments. The catchy “Little Fang” will probably find its way onto every hipster’s iPod by the beginning of the summer. Deradoorian’s voice is finally audible on the great “Strange Colores,” an energetic—if less experimental—hedonistic romp. The dub reggae touches and kraut rock-ish jam section of “Your Card” close the album nicely, showing for the first time that this music is indeed a collaboration rather than simply an Avey Tare solo outing.

Much more satisfying than 2012’s Centipede Hz, the looser and seemingly less deliberate Enter the Slasher House is an intricately nuanced yet immediately enjoyable record. It rewards during both close listens on quality headphones and as background noise to loud parties full of young people wearing beards and ironic trucker caps. It will be interesting to see how much more Deradoorian and Hyman come to the fore in future records by this trio.

reviewed by Richard Krueger