Having just wrapped production on a new album — Strawberry Jam, to release in 2008 on Domino Records — Baltimore-bred band Animal Collective kicked off Meg Fest Montreal last night short one member, Josh “Deakin” Dibb, who is reportedly taking a break from this fall tour after an exhaustive winter of recording in the Arizona desert. Since everyone in the band is pretty active (several members sing with no one taking the “lead” role, so to speak), his absence wasn’t hugely felt. Animal Collective shows are in general pretty visceral experiences, this one being no exception: there were a lot of strobe lights and light show effects. The venue — Le National, a converted theater in the city’s Village neighborhood — sold out early on in the evening and the place was packed, though mostly frozen in …