Album of the Week: My Head Is an Animal

I was thinking a lot this week about all the Record Club alumni who have released an album since we reviewed one of their previous ones. The number is starting to grow exponentially. Just in the month of May, we got albums from Weezer (ugh), Erika de Casier, and CHAI. The latter was probably why I was thinking about this so much—their new one, WINK, is really good! I know most of you hated that debut album back in March of 2019, so maybe I've just always been more forgiving of chipmunk vocals plastered on pop music, I dunno.

In any case, there's a lot of good music out there, and occasionally, Record Club is able to point you in the right direction to find that good music. A little ironic, then, that you probably didn't need to be pointed in the direction of this week's album. You know a song on the album very well already. But let's see how the rest of it holds up, eh?

If you don't want me to have all the fun reminiscing about the history of Record Club in these introductory paragraphs, you can always check out the archives or the playlist. If not, please plow ahead, because the future of Record Club is just as exciting.

WEEK 122 — May 30-June 5, 2021

What we're listening to this week (Pat's pick):

ALBUM: My Head Is an Animal

ARTIST: Of Monsters and Men

RELEASED: Originally released on September 20, 2011, and rereleased internationally on April 3, 2012 (important below)

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: Indie folk / Folk pop

WHY PAT PICKED IT: After I told Pat he couldn't pick the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, he sent me a list of five albums, in order of preference, that he'd like to check out. This one was at the top. The other four were: To the 5 Boroughs by the Beastie Boys; The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience by the Lonely Island (would've been disqualified too, by the way); Mouth Sounds by Neil Cicierega; Lie: The Love and Terror Cult by Charles Manson. Those last two make me personally regret that the list wasn't flipped upside down, but I am just your impartial Record Club editor, I don't make all the picks.

TRACKLIST**:

1. Dirty Paws
2. King and Lionheart
3. Mountain Sound
   
4. Slow and Steady
5. From Finner
   
6. Little Talks
7. Six Weeks
8. Love Love Love
9. Your Bones
10. Sloom
    
11. Lakehouse
12. Yellow Light

**This tracklist is for the 2012 reissue of the album, as opposed to the original 2011 Icelandic version. I checked Spotify, and the reissue's was the tracklist order on there as well. Plus, if I had gone to pick up a copy of this album at a physical record store at any time in the mid-'10s, this is the order I'd be hearing, so it doesn't make sense to get too pedantic here.

LENGTH: 53:47

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: YouTube (confirmed that this playlist also has the correct tracklist order)

READING SOME SHIT: We're just missing any potential 10th anniversary pieces for "Little Talks" by a few months, so you'll have to make do with this quasi-puff piece from The Guardian from 2012.

Happy listening, fam! Have a great week!