ANIMAL COLLECTIVE

With six studio albums and an ever expanding following, Panda Bear, Avey Tare, Geologist and Deacon aka Animal Collective return with their eagerly-awaited new album Strawberry Jam. Pure genius, we reckon it's one of the most exciting records you'll hear this year.

It's impossible to pigeonhole Animal Collective's sound, except to say that each album vents the band's need to pummel and scream their way into some strange new harmony, resulting in a mesmerising kaleidoscope of colour and sound you always feel privileged to have witnessed.

The follow-up to 2005's acclaimed Feels, Strawberry Jam is another joyous, starry-eyed AC symphony of psychedelic noisepop as thick, rich, sweet and colourful as it sounds.

The band say there was much "tecate drinking, barbecues, Javelina sightings and other desert oddities" during the Arizona recordings with producer Scott Colburn (Arcade Fire Neon Bible, Feels), all of which "might have influenced this record".

Think of Arcade Fire's crazy little bro kicking out the jams in another dimension, The Flaming Lips on *good* acid, Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds era protégés coming alive in 2007. It's chaotic, provocative, captivating and beautiful. It's Strawberry Jam!

Estimated despatch 5-10 days after ordering.