When your eighth album, your highest profile release, is cooed over by critics and greeted ecstatically by legions of fans in January, do you really need to release a single in March?

When the single is as good as Animal Collective's "My Girls", the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. The song is from the more user-friendly, poppy end of the Animal Collective spectrum, with Panda Bear's Brian Wilson-esque layered harmonies (brilliantly employed on end-of-year-favourite Person Pitch in 2007) taking over from Avey Tare's harsher squawk. The music is a slow-build rhapsodic pulse, a buoyant setting for the simplicity of the song’s sentiment (“I just want four walls and adobe slats. For my girls”). An infectious ode to domestic joy delivered over blissed-out synth rhythms, it’s compelling and catchy - and with adequate exposure should win a few more over to Animal Collective's unique avant-pop-psyche-folk blend.

"My Girls" is released 23 March 2009