Following up his 2017 album,

Eucalyptus

, Avey Tare of Animal Collective continues his exploration of psychedelic folk on

Cows on Hourglass Pond

and evolves his sound into something more accessible but just as surreal. With

Cows on Hourglass Pond

, Avey Tare acknowledges growing older while traveling through a hazy swamp of nostalgic memories and delivers his best solo album.

Cows on Hourglass Pond

takes a lot of its sonic palette from Avey Tare’s previous solo album,

Eucalyptus

. I enjoyed

Eucalyptus

quite a bit, it had some utterly gorgeous songs and is a very reflective and personal album. However, it wasn’t without its shortcomings, often I felt the record was a bit over-indulgent and meandered within its own sound just a bit too long.

Cows on Hourglass Pond

does not suffer the same fate. Each song is unique, and the tracks flow incredibly well together. There is never a moment where the record feels stale or drags on too long. While

Cows on Hourglass Pond

also develops psychedelic atmospheres around folky guitar songs, these songs are less meditative and are more structured. In fact, they are quite catchy and definitely help to create the most accessible Avey Tare solo album. However, this doesn’t mean Avey sacrifices any of his token psychedelic weirdness. There are still plenty of weird samples, murky atmospheres and strange sounds all coming together to create an introspective environment for these songs to live in.

With his songwriting, Avey gets quite existential. On the track “What’s the Goodside?” he references humanity’s origins as bubbles in the primordial ooze. It helps that this track builds so well sonically that it almost feels like as a listener I’m being lifted out of the ooze and into the beauty of my own humanity. Dreams of our future are brought up in “K.C. Yours”, where he examines a future with a robot friend.  Reflections on our past are brought up on “HORS_”, in which he wonders if horses “missed their job” when we created automobiles.

Cows on Hourglass Pond

is all about humanity and our idiosyncrasies. Whether that be something as simple as making eye contact with another human like on the track, “Eyes on Eyes” or as complex as developing a crush on someone who we can never have like on “Taken Boy”. He reminisces on relationships with old friends on “Our Little Chapter”. It is quite sentimental, nostalgic and bittersweet as he appreciates the people he has built friendships with. The song feels like reopening a photo album of times with old friends that are now more distant. Through these themes, Avey makes this record even more accessible as it simply ponders the human experience we all relate to. It is just done in such a curious, sentimental and fun way that it easily struck a chord with me.

If you like Animal Collective and have never heard Avey Tare’s solo work, this is easily the best place to start. And if you’re looking for a psychedelic album that is strange enough to push you out of your comfort zone but still relatable enough to feel like home, I cannot recommend this record enough. Overall, Avey Tare has really outdone himself on this record. He merged the introspective nature of

Eucalyptus

and the playful fun of his work with Animal Collective to create such an enjoyable listen.