The Baltimore-based, genre-bending band Animal Collective has never been known to shy away from experimentation.

They not only think outside of the box regarding how a song should sound and be structured, they also seem to ignore that that box exists in the first place.

Their debut album, “Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished,” was a jangled, discombobulated pile of concepts and ideas released by one of the band’s cofounders, David Portner, known by his stage name Avey Tare. From the get-go, Animal Collective has been purposely defying norms and confusing the hell out of casual music fans.

They continue this tradition with “The Painters” EP, the successor to their last full-length album “Painting With.” Much like “Painting With,” their newest EP is a lush, extravagant experience, oozing with synth samples, primitive percussion, and the vocals of Portner and Noah Lennox, also known as Panda Bear, fighting back and forth.

Lennox is perhaps one of the most well-known musicians in the band, launching his solo career as Panda Bear a year before Animal Collective existed. He has been nothing short of an enormous success in recent years. His five studio albums have all been well received, for the most part, and he effectively won a Grammy for his work on Daft Punk’s single “Doin’ It Right.” He, along with Portner, are nearly always present in Animal Collective, while the other two members are often excluded for various reasons. Brian Weitz, also known as Geologist, the sound designer for the band, takes part in “The Painters” EP. Josh Dibb, also known as Deakin, only appears on five of the band’s 12 albums, and is absent on this project.

The opener “Kinda Bonkers” is dense and energetic, with a bright congo drum pattern that makes it sound like something right out of “Indiana Jones.” The lyrics, a lot like everything Bob Dylan has ever written, are poetic, but do not make much sense.

“Life is so French toast to me,” Lennox sings on “Kinda Bonkers.” “If you wait too long/It gets black and weak.”

Lennox and Portner trade syllables back and forth ad-lib style, as Weitz loads the track with bright, colorful synths. 

“Peacemaker” is another tug-of-war match between the two singers. Backdropped by swelling pads and the sounds of old video games, the song contains no actual words. Only fragments of words are caught every now and then. The track is more focused on creating a space and disorienting the listener. Tribal percussion is present again and it is a staple of what makes the band’s sound so unique and organic.

A deep, nasally bass pounds away in “Goalkeeper,” giving the song a distinct charm. The lyrics are a bit hard to hear in the mix, which is overloading itself in every possible way with a dizzying conglomeration of beeps, blips and hi-hats. It is enough to give even the most experienced listener a headache and feels like a leftover from “Painted With” that did not quite make the cut.

“Jimmy Mack” is a remake of a classic song by the 1960s band Martha and the Vandellas, and it is actually pretty catchy. “Jimmy – oh Jimmy/When are you coming back?” shouts Portner, over roughly the same bass that was so prominent in “Goalkeeper.” It is a solid finish to the EP, that ends with Portner screaming and howling the chorus over and over.

This is a solid effort from Animal Collective, but nowhere near their best work. Their best album, “Sung Tongs,” is a hard project to top.