[Ethmin]

I think the biggest problem with the album as a whole is Guts and Wretch being back to back and sounding similar. I think they stand alone as great tracks but they are the reason people get the hocketing fatigue.

[destiny]

wretch album version makes me cry when i lsiten to and think back on seing summing live. its one of the best p songs for sure and one of their best live. thats like an unbridled energy with live drums that summing has. its a shame becuz in my humble the bells are put away in the background on that song when live they are so loud and ringing. also the last section where avey is screaming to the rhythm of the song. ne could only wonder how this album would be like if they played the tunes like regular ac songs and let them slow buildup and didnt play em like shorties but then who knows if they would be the same songs to begin with.

[rampface]

Loving this record again. It's fun to sing along. I try and do the hocketing parts and some of them are difficult to pull off without running out of breath. I hope this album is embraced in the future.

[rohcti]

Yeah I like this album, but it works a lot better as a collection of singles. I love stuff like Summing the Wretch when I listen to it by itself, but in the context of the album I get annoyed by it. I think they did a lot of things right on this album, but it just doesn't work for me as a coherent whole. There are several top tier tracks on this one, namely LitG, Burglars, and On Delay

[Tropic]

Make Natural Selection six minutes long, swap Bagels for Hounds and completely remove On Delay from existence and this becomes markedly better

[zak]

that's the kinda thing you would've wanted, eh?

[Mr_Neffets]

Tropic of Cans wrote:

Make Natural Selection six minutes long, swap Bagels for Hounds and completely remove On Delay from existence and this becomes markedly better

Wut.

I feel like Bagels and On Delay are some of the songs w/ most staying power for me.

Hounds, Spilling Guts and Summing the Wretch (maybe a little less so Spilling Guts) are all fine but fill the same kind of role.

[dance avey dance]

Tropic of Cans wrote:

Make Natural Selection six minutes long, swap Bagels for Hounds and completely remove On Delay from existence and this becomes markedly better

zak wrote:

that's the kinda thing you would've wanted, eh?

this actually made me lol

I think Peacemaker would have been a good addition to the album so it had a moment to breath

[Stanshant]

In hindsight, I just find the style of songwriting pretty obnoxious in almost every instance. For something so different for them, it feels very formulaic and even more shallow with the distance of time. I have absolutely no desire to ever listen to it again. Goalkeeper is the total worst Animal Collective song. It seems to come from Dave trying to write a by-the-numbers song to Noah's hocketing brief, with zero inspiration. It's like bad fan fiction.

[Tropic]

If I may actually be serious for once, I just don't like AC writing an entire album of short songs. It works well on Buoys but it's really not something I'd want them to experiment in ever again. PW definitely has breathing problems. It's like the AC magic condensed down into a little ecstasy pill. Fun while it lasts but you basically have no serotonin for days afterward.

[roopn]

Stan ya wrong, Goalkeeper is one of the better PW tracks

[terrestrialjane]

wrong is like so subjective , man
{ ;

[destiny]

goalkeeper has one of the best ever ac chorusi....also i generally agree with pts aforementioned...ac songs need time to breath and develop cause thats how they write em

[Stanshant]

The Painting With songs should be choked out and left on some train tracks.

[destiny]

I'm getting my homies goalkeeper and burglars to beat ur azz up punk

[tdegenaro]

Happy third birthday Paining With! I remember the first day I heard Lying in the Grass, via the goofy ass app, with headphones plugged in at my desk, trying so hard to not geek in the presence of my weird former-lawyer-turned-writing-professor office mate, Lee Brooks, who has sense retired. Good dude, great song.

Forever grateful for airport boots.

[rohcti]

Oddly specific but ok

I honestly do really enjoy this album, but like I said before it doesn't really work as a front to back experience. I've listened to it a lot and have grown to love it in its own way, but if it was any other band I probably wouldn't be as forgiving

[unpopular]

still diggin it 3 years on, i would pay an exorbitant amount of money to get these burpsynth patches

agree w the idea that they should've broken up the album a little bit more/structured it differently, the songs really are great by themselves (except spilling guts imo) but back to back they get kind of tiring. if i repainted with, i'd go something like

recycling
bonkers
vertical
gnip
litg
pocus
wretch
hounds
floridada
peacemaker
burglars
on delay
golden gal

ep:
natural selection
goalkeeper
guts
bagels
jimmy

ever since i saw them live and they opened with recycling i thought it honestly could've been a great opener for the album

deadass never understood the complaint of "the whole album has hocketing!!!!" like. their entire discography, every album, has a specific cohesive sound/theme to it . that's like complaining that feels is too atmospheric rock or that centipede hz is too influenced by radio transmissions, its just........ not a complaint? it's an observation in the form of a complaint???????? whatever

also get annoyed by the incessant fight of saying this album sucks and then people coming to defend it too. you can hate something your fav band made, chill the hell out. opinions are like assholes: everyone has one, they all stink, and mine is especially sloppy

[Ethmin]

Stanshant wrote:

In hindsight, I just find the style of songwriting pretty obnoxious in almost every instance. For something so different for them, it feels very formulaic and even more shallow with the distance of time. I have absolutely no desire to ever listen to it again. Goalkeeper is the total worst Animal Collective song. It seems to come from Dave trying to write a by-the-numbers song to Noah's hocketing brief, with zero inspiration. It's like bad fan fiction.

This hurts me psychically.

Tropic of Cans wrote:

If I may actually be serious for once, I just don't like AC writing an entire album of short songs. It works well on Buoys but it's really not something I'd want them to experiment in ever again. PW definitely has breathing problems. It's like the AC magic condensed down into a little ecstasy pill. Fun while it lasts but you basically have no serotonin for days afterward.

This is a good take.

['Worms']

wild that it's been three years.....i have really vivid memories of the day it freebirded and like someone else mentioned i also remember where i was the first time i listened to lying in the grass lol. really great times even though my excitement was like a fraction of what it was for hz...

super great album and honestly if the painters ep had never come out i'd pretty much have 0 negative feelings about this era of their stuff, although i'm very happy to see the direction they've all headed since

[hunkswithguns]

unpopular wrote:

still diggin it 3 years on, i would pay an exorbitant amount of money to get these burpsynth patches

agree w the idea that they should've broken up the album a little bit more/structured it differently, the songs really are great by themselves (except spilling guts imo) but back to back they get kind of tiring. if i repainted with, i'd go something like

recycling
bonkers
vertical
gnip
litg
pocus
wretch
hounds
floridada
peacemaker
burglars
on delay
golden gal

ep:
natural selection
goalkeeper
guts
bagels
jimmy

ever since i saw them live and they opened with recycling i thought it honestly could've been a great opener for the album

deadass never understood the complaint of "the whole album has hocketing!!!!" like. their entire discography, every album, has a specific cohesive sound/theme to it . that's like complaining that feels is too atmospheric rock or that centipede hz is too influenced by radio transmissions, its just........ not a complaint? it's an observation in the form of a complaint???????? whatever

also get annoyed by the incessant fight of saying this album sucks and then people coming to defend it too. you can hate something your fav band made, chill the hell out. opinions are like assholes: everyone has one, they all stink, and mine is especially sloppy

The idea of cohesion has always existed in their albums but with each sequential album, I think these ideas have been given more direct focus to tie the album together. This is good because each era sounds distinct... but Painting With was the tipping point for me.

Upon first listen, everything sounded too similar. The hocketing technique came off as a gimmick that made every song sound too similar. I quickly got over that and grew to love the album and the era but I'm having the same problem with Buoys. Everything's cohesive but it's all too similar. I'm sure I'll grow to love it in time...or I won't and the next project will blow me away. That's the beauty of AC.

[jetski]

I love this album so much. Probably agree that it's a little too nonstop energy and could be paced better but when I'm in the right mood for it it's amazing

Also this was the first AC album cycle I experienced as a fan and I saw 5 shows on this tour so it's def a lot of good memories, it is wild it's been 3 years already

[destiny]

i'll never forget lying in my bed listening at 6 am, listening to the boot that split golden gal in half with summing the wrech being the first half and golden gal itself being the second half, thinking it was fucking ingenious.

[tdegenaro]

I could see how the tracks all sounding really similar could be a negative to a listener, but especially in light of how bouys is working best for me, I think PW's bite sized songs and being able to just loop that bitch again and again really does some good work for the listening experience.

that being said, I think the take that individual songs stand more memorably than the album experience is a pretty solid take, and I might agree with that despite really liking PW. the tour was also really, really excellent, and that paints (hah) the memories of the era.

[dio]

the full year or so after this released, it was the best thing I could imagine hearing and I still think its some of the tastiest synths/production ive heard from them.

but part of what makes pw so distinct also in turns is what makes Tangerine Reef and the Music Box set feel so damn refreshing and revelatory. but its also dumb of me to be surprised that they never stop changing up their shit. keeps me coming backkkkk.

gotta say the tour/shows >>>> than the album by at least a bit.

On Delay 4 lyfe. And Spilling Guts. underrated..

[jetski]

Golden Gal is underrated I think. I love the production and the synths on it, there's a lot of subtle details that are really sweet. but especially just love the melodies and the way their voices sound, the whole last half of the song is really beautiful, I've teared up to it before

[terrestrialjane]

merri was the peak and its just been all down hill since

[Fovrodi]

lol

[tdegenaro]

terrestrialjane wrote:

merri was the peak and its just been all down hill since

[terrestrialjane]

yeah even if not better
theyre all equally good
glad there still making music
more new stuff

[unpopular]

man i revisited pw again last night and its so underrated, this is ac with their most unfiltered synth fuckery ever. just absolutely goofin and experimenting with shit. recycling is a criminally underappreciated song. love it.

[rohcti]

I'm not big on changing orders or adding songs, but if you take out Natural selection and spilling guts, the album is much better. I like those songs but they're a bit much

[Fovrodi]

Considering their music being used in the past for skateboarding videos (In the Flowers, Take Pills?, Grass?) I'm surprised none from this era ended up in any AFAIK. Especially a shame bc this set of songs would fit best out of their entire catalogue imo.

[Calamity Pete]

I finally got around to watching Painting Without the other day and it made me feel like the songs could have ended up way more memorable.. idk if its how the percussion is mixed or how they went out of their way to make the songs more compact but.. it was still pretty fun. Goalkeeper IS the worst ac song. I like gnip gnop thkugh

[Hellomark]

Studio Gnip Gnop is just sort of ok, but as a live jam that song is NUTS. Jeremy's drums add so much to that one. I think maybe my favorite AC show I've ever been to was their 2016 9:30 club show, they opened with Gnip Gnop and it immediately melted everyone's face.

[Calamity Pete]

Oh hell yeah I was there! That's probably why I like Gnip Gnop so much lol.. perfect intro