Panda Bear
Tomboy
By: Nick Habisch
Rating: 
“Know you can count on me”
As Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear of Animal Collective fame utters the first lines of his new album, Tomboy, “know you can count on me,” it is ironic how true these words ring. After his 2007 album, Person Pitch was met with love by listeners, Panda Bear is back with another stellar release; a release that sees him trade in sampling other’s work for creating his own. If Person Pitch didn’t establish Lennox as a stellar musician, then Tomboy surely does.
From the angelic strains of “You Can Count on Me”, to the upbeat tones of “Tomboy”, to the noise of “Drone” and the bounce of “Afterburner”, Panda Bear’s Tomboy is a display of catchy, intriguing songwriting. Deviating from Person Pitch’s long, meandering song structures, Lennox tightens up the music on this album, delivering eleven tracks that don’t go a second longer then they need to.
By not basing his song structure off of sampling other’s work, the instrumental abilities of Panda are able to flow more freely. Whether it’s the sort of hopping main melody of “Last Night at the Jetty”, or the jangling tone of “Surfer’s Hymn”, there is always something interesting going on musically throughout the whole album beneath the heavily affected vocals.
The melody and catchy lyrics provided by Lennox are the highlight of the album. The way the vocals weave nicely with the music, without one detracting from the other, is a testament to what Tomboy does right. The highlight track of the album is “Tomboy”, with it’s pushing rhythm that sets a nice tempo for the rest of the album to follow. The guitar effects are beautiful, the rhythm is tight, and Panda’s voice is ethereal in its tone. This is what this album is about in a one-track nutshell.
Although Panda Bear has crafted a magnificent album, not all is perfect. Tomboy feels a little too structured; missing is the quirkiness that made Person Pitch so fantastic. Although the shorter tracks are nice, there just isn’t the same curiosity driving the listener, who instead are driven by whether the hook appeals to them or not. Musically the pace seems stuck at a mid-tempo feel, not doing much to go above or below this; while this is not a major issue, it does make the album drag just a tad.
With Tomboy, Noah Lennox has created yet another wonderful album away from his Collective cohorts, one that is both soothing and engaging at the same time. The lines will be drawn between whether this or Person Pitch is Panda’s best, but he could easily surpass both by combining the catchy songwriting of Tomboy with the meandering curiosity of Person Pitch. Until then be content in let yourself be swept away in the river that is Tomboy.
