The first great album of 2009 has arrived. Suppress that indignant laugh. Yes, it's early. Really early. But don't be surprised if Animal Collective's "Merriweather Post Pavilion" (Domino), out this week, ends up on numerous best-of lists when '09 winds down.

Animal Collective is a New York City (via Baltimore) band that has released eight previous, wildly disparate studio albums since 2000. The connective thread in all of them is the songwriting of Avey Tare (aka David Portner) and Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox), but the music is all over the place, bridging psychedelic rock, cutting-edge dance music, '60s vocal harmonies, electronic experimentation and hippie folk reveries.

That globe-trotting, genre-busting eclecticism makes the band impossible to typecast, and its releases range from the entrancing to the barely coherent. "Merriweather Post Pavilion" arrives as the group's most focused collection yet. Not because its borders have narrowed. On the contrary, it attains a sprawling, reach-for-the-sky scope. But the songs are more instantly engaging, the melodies pushed to the foreground of the dense, burbling mixes.

That festive atmosphere, an essential part of the band's live performances for years, has never translated so emphatically to the studio.

On the opening track, the singer yearns to "leave my body for a night" and then gets his wish as a carnival organ kicks in. In "Summertime Clothes," the narrator exults, "My skin's gotta breathe," as he strips down to enjoy a sunny afternoon. The song conjures mental images of cherry sodas and cotton candy, a merry-go-round swirling amid soap bubbles, a paradise of childlike images. A lover in "Bluish" declares, "I'm getting lost in your curls," while falsetto harmonies soar and a piano flutters. There are no great philosophical insights to be had. Or, perhaps just one: to enjoy life to the fullest, to bask in its constant wonderment.

Not that the music ever feels slight. The major-key pomp rises from a foundation of heavy drone.

But mostly, these urban hippies have come to make us dance. Their speaker-rattling, synthesizer-fed bass lines would be the envy of Jay-Z and Bernie Worrell. The closing "Brother Sport" turns into a full-on rave, as if Panda Bear, Avey Tare and their accomplices believe they can turn the moon into a mirror ball, spinning on high as the world parties.