Animal Collective

With Feels, Animal Collective divorce themselves from the over-hyped "freak folk" movement to craft songs that have a more solid foundation and (dare we say it) rock. "Grass" sounds like Mates of State and Fiery Furnaces merging inside an intergalactic black hole, while "Bees" boasts autoharp.

Back when I was a young feller, we called these things hootenannies, only we thought they needed songs ("Did You See the Words," "Turn Into Something"). (Grade - **)