Last time Animal Collective played in Tucson it was to a sold-out crowd at the recently condemned-slash-reopened-slash-moody-Steve-Eyed Solar Culture. It was going to be a test to whether Animal Collective’s sound – since they’re getting too big for their britches – could fill a theater the size of The Rialto. It was also going to be interesting to see if they would play predominantly from their newest album Strawberry Jam or pick some oldies from their expanding catalogue.

Their early recordings thud with minimal electronic compositions set as the backdrop for primal screams and quirky lyrical structure. Their sound segued into stricter adherence to verse-chorus-verse songs as heard on the albums Feels and Sung Tongs. The latter being my favorite album simply because it is as straightforward as Animal Collective gets. Listening to the lively “Who Could Win A Rabbit” is like listening to a children’s story complete with clapping, shouting and storybook lyrics. Immediately following is the warm and fuzzy “The Softest Voice,” which cradles the listener gently with its hushed lullaby-like chords.

In drastic contrast to anything tender, Animal Collective’s newest album Strawberry Jam is as all over the place as can be in forty-five minutes. The natural progression of the band has effectively turned on its head, forming an entirely new sound, but losing everything that had defined them up until now.

Once experimental and brusque, Animal Collective have reversed back to a state of long drawn out incoherency and mediocre “jams.” Not quite sure where the next track is coming from, Strawberry Jam is an anti-collection of different song styles that never add up to anything. The first two tracks on the album, “Peacebone” and “Unsolved Mysteries,” are Specter-fied Beatles pop songs complete with over-the-top orchestration. “Chores” an appropriately daunting four and a half minutes of a single vocal loop fades directly into, no joke, an Al Green tribute song. What’s next? Actually, there’s “Fireworks” a pretty straight forward grunge rock song and then “#1,” which samples The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly.” If that’s not enough poison to commit aural suicide there’s a chopped and screwed version of “Winter Wonder Land,” which sounds like a joke being played on the listener.

Would Animal Collective’s live show be able to rectify the situation or would Strawberry Jam prove to be the unstable mortar and subsequent crumbling of the collective?

Topping the awesome names for bands list, Wizard Prison took the stage around 9:30 for the last time with Animal Collective on this tour and man if you thought Animal Collective was sonically mind-blowing Wizard Prison stole the blow.

Forming an actual barrier between the crowd and their instruments, Wizard Prison set up a large geometric sheet and played in front of projecting lights casting larger than life shadows that danced like large Rorschach prints. I was waiting for a strange ritual involving coitus through the sheet, but that never happened. Instead, Wizard Prison violated everyone else’s ear in the packed theater.

Not surprisingly, Wizard Prison sounded like a wizard in a prison with a bull and a tiger. With every dark and chaotic sonic boom the audience grew increasingly worried for their safety. Wizard Prison must have been emitting frequencies that scare off teenagers because most of the front row began to look around nervously and cover their ears in shock. The first guitar chord left a physical impression on the audience as they scattered to get away from the front of the stage. Some fans started to hurl insults at the band and plea for Animal Collective to take the stage, but their cries fell upon deaf ears, literally. In fact, the tinnitus inducing effects of the first sludge and grind guitar work, like the bare guitar work that Neil Young did for the Deadman OST, but played at that threshold of pain, was still remembered 20 minutes after they were finished.

Even the closed-minded younger audience members who came to crowd surf to Animal Collective couldn’t not appreciate the sonic balls that Wizard Prison displayed in front of a primarily hostile audience. Some people finally gave in to head-banging and even clapped along for the last song, which produced a “Thank You” graphic from the band and the shadow of a fist rose in the shape of the claw.

The silence before Animal Collective took the stage was truly deafening as everyone recovered and adjusted to normal sounds. Once the three, count um, three members of the usually four-membered Collective took the stage, they were lavished with applause and rightly so. They were about to put on a hell of a show.

Unfortunately, yet expectedly, they mostly drew songs from their new album Strawberry Jam. Their rendition of “Peacebone” from said album made quite an impression on the supple minds of newly inducted Animal Collective fanbase. While most newbies chose to surf the stormy waves of the crowd, others experienced the new songs from a small dark space on the floor or still others watching and waiting contemplatively for a song from an older album, like myself.

Like an aging fine wine, Animal Collective have turned the hipster to hippie choosing to bang drums with their all electronic set-up like Akron/Family at a rave.

It wasn’t until the last song of the show that Animal Collective pulled out a catastrophically caterwauled rendition of “Leaf House” and peaced-out sans encore.

No matter how much disdain I hold for their sub-par release this year, Animal Collective has earned their hype by sticking to their music instead of wasting time dazzling their growing audiences with stage shows and blow-up dolls. Unlike so many undeserving indie bands, Animal Collective deserve their kudos for doing their music their way.