Animal Collective, Roundhouse, London

Oh, Roundhouse. All exterior architectural beauty and interior calm space; all brilliant line-ups and arts-encouraging youth courses; all roof terrace and sexy high ceiling. But you let me down. You let me down every time. Why? Because people can’t play loud, texturally complex music without it sounding a bit like the world’s about to end while someone breaks a TV. 

Prince Rama open the show with an in-crowd, veiled appearance from Taraka Larson, before she joins her sister Nimai and their pal Michael Collins on stage for some psychedelic musical experiments. A few Sanskrit-inspired vocal lines and some mesmerising percussion-playing later, Collins outdoes himself with the world’s worst excuse for light display: shining a flashing torch at his bandmates. Couple him with the chump in front who insists on holding his lighter in the air throughout much of the evening, and you’ve got yourself a real luminary powerhouse. Prince Rama win the crowd around, however, and prove themselves to be the perfect complement to Animal Collective.

‘Centipede Hz’, which makes up most of the show, is a much more raucous album than ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’, and the Roundhouse eats those good, intense sounds and spits them out as confused, angry ones. Animal Collective live have a mixed reputation, but this gig certainly doesn’t feel like a poor reflection of what they were playing; it just isn’t a happy noise marriage.

Performance-wise, Animal Collective’s (on this occasion) four members are rather a static bunch. Confined to a specific area by their instruments, they play energetically and meaningfully, but within a very small, sweaty space. Movement and interaction are minimal and, after the surprise that the stage has been turned into a huge mouth - a replication of the ‘Centipede Hz’ album cover - there isn’t a whole lot going on. Thankfully, the crowd are seriously involved and determined to have the best time ever; the atmosphere is electric enough to provide entertainment in itself.

‘Rosie Oh’ and ‘Moonjock’ are new-album highlights, with ‘Honeycomb’, ‘Lion In A Coma’ and ‘My Girls’ (as encore) satisfying the longer term fans. Sound and stage presence are the real let-downs of this gig, but fundamental musical quality and the joyous vibe more than buoy it up.