Two decades since debuting as the masked-and-nicknamed drummer and vocalist of Animal Collective, Noah Lennox has led so many creative lives, navigated so many different styles, and been part of so many beloved recordings, that it can be easy to overlook just how consistent his creative vision has remained. From landmarks solo albums like 2007’s Person Pitch and 2015’s Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, to breakthroughs with Animal Collective like 2004’s Sung Tongs and 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, to his boundary-pushing collaborations with Daft Punk and Solange, Dean Blunt and Paramore, all of his work followed an instantly identifiable emotional throughline while influencing multiple generations and genres of artists.

 

 

On Sinister Grift, Lennox’s first solo album in five years, he has returned with another statement that feels equally cumulative and unprecedented in his catalog. While his solo records have ranged from starkly intimate expressions of grief to colorful, electronic opuses, his music has never before sounded so warm and immediate. Working in his Lisbon, Portugal home studio with Animal Collective bandmate Josh “Deakin” Dibb, Lennox transforms Panda Bear into something resembling an old-school rock ensemble, playing nearly all the instruments himself and inviting kindred spirits into the process such as Cindy Lee, Spirit of the Beehive’s Rivka Ravede, and—for the first time on a Panda Bear solo album—each of his Animal Collective bandmates.