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It seems almost unnecessary to point out that Panda Bear’s new LP, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, is an album wherein he attempts to confront death. This sense is apparent in a number of places, from the title itself to the funeral organ with which the album opener Sequential Circuits is carried along by.

For the most part, however, the artist approaches this preoccupation in a remarkably sunny fashion. To describe the album’s sound, imagine The Beach Boys making an album that went sample-heavy on Mario Kart: glorious pop melodies are drenched in a glistening digital squelch and grit. He drenches his vocals in reverb, and in this he disguises what is often quite dark lyrical content. This can at times seem to jar against the music itself.

The album closes on an ecstatic note with the song Acid Wash. By this point it does feel as if Panda Bear has confronted the titular Grim Reaper, and judging by this closing track their conversation ends amicably. By this stage the listener is brought to a realisation that, in this album, death is a metaphor for renewal rather than being an entity of finality. Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper is a fantastic piece of contemporary psychedelia, and the artist sets a high bar for everyone else to follow this year.