textural parts)? i replied the latter and he was stoked. that was the ultimate reason we chose him. he's so good at exploring and pushing the limits of his instruments. he can master the pretty and melodic stuff, harsh noise music, trancey drones, etc." Engineer Scott Colburn also provided a few details about recording Feels on the Collected Animals message board (under the username "Scooter") "Feels started on tape and ended up in Nuendo...The vocals had effects on them, but they were no different than the effects used live. , each vocal track was recorded with 6 microphones, thereby creating a whole new effect." Title and artwork The cover art is reminiscent of the work of artist Henry Darger. Its creator, the group's singer Dave Portner, has been a huge fan of Darger but didn't have Darger in mind while creating the cover art. He found a children's educational guide on the street and thought "the images fit the sound and the lyrics perfectly." In an interview, Kria Brekkan, Portner's ex-wife, revealed the origin of the title, "I think what I brought to it perhaps got channeled through Dave's creativity and so on. We had been intense for nearly a year, at the time when it was recorded, and when my friends saw the album cover, they thought it was my art, and they laughed about the title because it came from my use of English. I used the word "feels" for feelings." Critical reception Feels received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 84, based on 35 reviews. Mark Richardson of Pitchfork wrote, "Feels is an excellent record, one that, despite a more conventional approach, happens to get better over time." AllMusic critic John Bush said, "The group sounds freer than ever before, almost as though they've never bothered with rock in their lives, and have only happened upon a bare few LPs before beginning their recording career." The Guardians Betty Clarke wrote, "Swapping campfire cosiness for expansive joy, they sound so accomplished the Flaming Lips comparisons fall by the wayside." The album placed third in The Wires annual critics' poll. Track listing Personnel Credits adapted from the liner notes of Feels. Animal Collective Animal Collective – mixing Avey Tare Panda Bear Geologist Deakin Additional personnel Doctess – piano