ALBUM REVIEW: PANDA BEAR - TOMBOY

Remember October? When Panda Bear kept saying - well, lying to us is the more exact term - that Tomboy was coming out soon? Obviously, it didn’t, because mid-spring clearly does not qualify as “soon”. But all this aside, we can’t feel anything else but joy at finally seeing Tomboy released. Tomboy which does things pretty much by the book. If “by the book”, you think of You Can Count on Me’s sound.

Let me freshen up your memory again. Yes, it’s all about the Lion King revival, a new soundtrack for the film even. And, maybe by coincidence, maybe due to careful planning, YCCOM is the album’s very first track. Everything that comes after follows the same line. Airy and sparse instrumentals, lots of drone electronica, chimes and child-like murmurs are used to enhance the dream-like state.  

It is true that the careless breeze that is the first half on the album, with its memories of childhood, turns briefly into a pre-storm sea, with the likes of Scherezade’s haunting piano and Lennox’s impersonation of a lonely bar singer. But truth is, he’s not willing to stay down for long and quickly goes back to vocals that are barely wrapped in experimental electronica and tribal drums. Even if there is still a hint of claustrophobia left, Lennox takes care of sweeping it all away by the end of Tomboy with the sounds of waves crushing against the seashore.

What’s great about Tomboy is that it seems to be so pop even if it uses devices out of pop’s realm. How it just has this soothing feel to it and is able to make you completely immerse into whatever world it creates. And just how, as each song flows into the other, the album abuses its sort of magical powers of otherworldliness creating a pleasant blur between realities.

~ Ana Dinescu