Collective has talent to spare

February 24, 2006|Linda Laban, Globe Correspondent

Brooklyn's Animal Collective has been doling out its free-form indie rock for half a decade, and to an increasing number of takers. Demand for tickets in Boston, where the band kicked off its winter tour on Tuesday night, pushed the band's performance from the Paradise (capacity 650) to Avalon (capacity 1,850). And the latter was almost sold out, too.

Animal Collective is not a collective that rotates around a star, like, say, Bright Eyes, but a quartet numbering Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist, and Deaken: a group of Maryland natives, who regrouped in Brooklyn post-college. Each records other projects, and not all contribute to each Animal Collective disc.

Rather, the band is a collective of ideas and a coming together through mutual need, for safety and succor, just like any animal pack. At Avalon, the band blended its fey indie rock and prog-y psychedelic jams with taut, vibrant tribal beats. Songs, many from last year's wonderful Grandaddy-meets-Modest Mouse-like ''Feels," including the wayward sunshine pop of ''Grass," were sandwiched with lengthy improv that ranged from gnashing hardcore to spacey multiloop trips. Each piece notched up more than 10 minutes.

Tare (real name, David Port-ner) anchored the set with vocal lines that switched from angelic, childlike singing to howls and screams. Layers of effects treated both voice and instruments; white noise and sci-fi squall were treated as instruments. Densely layered drones led to spiky percussive jams, and each traveled through various levels of dementia and euphoria.

Signed to Animal Collective's Paw Tracks label, girl trio First Nation's anemic, Indian-influenced drones proved trying. More engaging was the one-man provocateur BARR, who opened with a prickly spoken-word set that was as embittered as it was enlightened.