2006, Equal Vision Records
Lover, the Lord Has Left Us opens with a cacophony of mostly familiar instruments and sounds, and, in doing so, sets the pace for the album -- using familiar instruments, The Sound of Animals Fighting manages to create something unusual and unsurprisingly daring; after all, the band does try to remain nameless and faceless (though with a little research, the names and faces are not difficult to find,) and, when combined with the history of the supergroup, it's much less socially restricting to create music that clashes with typical aesthetics, even with the bands closely associated with the group.
Even still, The Sound of Animals Fighting create a sound that, while unusual, maintains a sense of sanity (for the majority of the album, at the very least) that is absent in the music of a number of bands. It's not that they're not unusual, in essence, it's just that they're not that unusual, which, luckily, fails to be a point of praise or disdain; rather, it's merely an important clarification.
Most interesting about the group is the songwriting process -- the approach with Lover, the Lord Has Left Us apparently begins with percussion and builds up from that point. Listening really drives home the concept -- not only are the drums mixed with a certain boldness, but there's a certain tenacity to the rhythmic nature of the music that helps to move it along. It's not unusual for music having these qualities to lose itself in a clutter of guitars, vocals, and synthesizers, and The Sound of Animals Fighting manages to avoid the common pitfall. Lover, the Lord Has Left Us is an undoubtedly interesting album, but it certainly doesn't hold well for casual listeners: it demands attention with its powerful percussion, but the unique vocal stylings and its certain rawness are what will keep listeners in.