Last year’s Time Skiffs was a return to form for Animal Collective, who — after segmenting off on their own individual pursuits for a minute while intermittently working as a fraction — regrouped in full-band form for the first time since since 2012′s Centipede Hz. The listen was one of their most chilled out iterations of their singular, psychedelic art-rock and freak-folk permutations, and assembled their kaleidoscopic vision with more focus than ever. Isn’t It Now?, the band’s 12th studio effort, wasn’t recorded very long after its predecessor, but was left to marinate until the world fully returned to IRL status so that the dynamics of the album could thrive more organically in the wild upon release. That it surely does, as even their 22-minute-long existential equivalent of Homer’s Iliad in “Defeat” moves along like a blink of an eye across the hour-long album. This is also an album that at its core is centered around the lapse of time, with AnCo — now in their wiser, veteran status — starting to recognize their own place in history and that they’re maybe closer to the end of this earthly voyage than they are looking forward to what it beholds. Still, it hasn’t made them any less adventurous. Just more certain of their magic together, baring further reflection of their collective jam.

Highlights: “Soul Capturer”, “Magicians From Baltimore”, “Defeat”

Animal Collective’s Isn’t It Now? is available now on Domino Recording Co.

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