Panda Bear
Sinister Grift
Release Date: Feb 28, 2025
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Domino
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Album Review: Sinister Grift by Panda Bear
Excellent, Based on 5 Critics
Based on rating 8.5/10
Throughout his 25-year career, Panda Bear (aka Animal Collective's Noah Lennox) has had a wide and varied output. His records with Animal Collective--influential in their own right--touched on psychedelic pop, always carving out an avant garde space. In his solo work, Lennox has often opted for even more experimental sounds, such as on 2019's synth-saturated chamber pop Buoys, or 2015's hip-hop-adjacent, sample-heavy Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper.
Based on rating 4
As the title implies, Noah Lennox’s latest exploration has a shadowy underbelly, a curious tension at its heart that makes it equal parts happy and sad In the course of his solo career, Animal Collective's Noah Lennox has used the Panda Bear alias to explore a wide range of musical areas. Most recently he explored dub in the company of Spaceman 3's Sonic Boom, their musical chemistry yielding an intoxicating Reset album. Now Lennox returns to self, but with a host of collaborators to hand.
Based on rating 8/10
From social platforms in fascist free-fall to opportunists pushing crypto like it's still 2021, our virtual age is feeling increasingly like a promise unfulfilled. The digital snake oil salesmen are here, and they just won't fuck off. However, it's the onward march of AI that feels most depressing of all. Steadily closing in on the diminishing territory of artists everywhere, it feels like there's no shortage of tech bros and oligarchs seeking to turn our already fractured lives into an assembly line of lifeless, committee-approved content sludge.
Based on rating 4/5
Noah Lennox's seventh album as Panda Bear is a departure. There are conventional rock song structures. There are hooks and choruses in plain sight, not hiding. If you enjoyed Reset, his collaboration with Sonic Boom from 2022, Sinister Grift has the same warmth, immediacy and accessibility. If you ….
Opinion: Excellent
An artist firmly anchored in leftfield indie's vibrant echelons for two decades now, Panda Bear's solo work to date has largely rooted itself in a sort of introversion. Sprawling and hypnotic, it's often so immersive at times to become almost isolating. 'Sinister Grift', however, presents itself in opposition to this, with a breezy, lived-in warmth.
'Sinister Grift'
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