Grizzly Bear--once the bedroom nom de plume of singer/multi-instrumentalist Ed Droste, now a sort of foggy folk pop conversation between Droste and melodic foil Daniel Rossen with Christophers Bear and Taylor lending some necessary bang and clatter--know a thing or two about space. On 2009's still-devastatingly gorgeous Veckatimest, the Brooklyn-based indie troupe built a swirling symphony of sigh with their adept flair for brittle melodies and deceptively sunny harmonies all doused in a thick dollop of reverb and room tone. Whereas that album was a bold two steps forward from the meandering escapism of Yellow House, their new album Shields (out September 18 via Warp Records) takes an interesting step to the left—both busier, denser and more structurally complicated than Veckatimest, it's an album that plays its proverbial cards (emotional, melodic and otherwise) pretty close to the chest. Note the choice in album artwork.
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On the surface, Grizzly Bear haven't strayed too far from the billowing, effortlessly captivating sounds of their breakthrough-- opening cut "Sleeping Ute" is certainly faster and buzzier than anything on their last album, but Rossen's stream of conscious, dreamlike lyrical malaise ("Delivered to this place / a vision dark and cloaked / Those figures through the leaves / That life through the smoke…") and a spaciously lush final stretch lay a thick, gloomy foundation beneath its rollicking guitar lines and Chris Bear's lurching rhythms. With few exceptions (the ambient stopgap "Adelma," the funereal piano chords that open "The Hunt"), this is a much busier sounding album than Veckatimest—songs like "A Simple Answer" and "What's Wrong" are positively jam-packed with sound, the latter even finding room for a traditional jazz shuffle in the wake of its slow burning Stereolab synthesizer psychedelia. Even when the melodies manage to sound… dare I say it… cheerful, as on the mildly tempered uptempo tumble of "gun-shy," the thick backdrops suggest an undercurrent of bummer (it arrives in a tumbling flurry of bowed cellos and dense bass chords on the monolithic "Half Gate").
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More often than not, the group's trademark harmonies are relegated to texture duty, as on the loose-limbed "Speak In Rounds" ("If I draw you upside down, I can't let go," Droste coos playfully over a warm electronic groove that builds seamlessly into Rossen's lavish, jangling chorus) and the aforementioned "A Simple Answer," a misleadingly fanciful swirl of a song that descends elegantly into a wondrously bleak, foreboding second half. "Please make your mind up," Rossen pleads anxiously over the stark cellos of "What's Wrong," later lamenting, "You've fallen once, you'll fall again" on the album's expansive closer "Sun In Your Eyes," a stark elegy that builds up from a single piano and lonely hi-hat into a joyous fanfare of flutes and horns before coiling back into a dark, cavernous fugue state of barely-there guitars and a haunting "it overflows, it overflows" refrain.
The almost unbearable emotional weight of Veckatimest wasn't in its vocals (watched Blue Valentine again recently?) or even in those glorious harmonies; that album's strength was in its ability to make its sparse, delicate songs sound positively endless-- a never-ending tangle of indie rock brush housing layer upon layer of meticulous nuance. Shields sounds fuller in a more traditional sense, but it’s an equally demanding and rewarding listen from boisterous start to pensive finish. Don't expect anything as immediately gripping as "While You Wait For The Others" or melodically satisfying as "Two Weeks"—like the emotional knot in the gut it's sure to induce, Shields is a thorny, intricate piece of work that will leave you feeling both emotionally winded and intellectually lost at sea. Feeling inexplicably sad, confused and vulnerable for forty-eight straight minutes has never felt quite this good… or this necessary.
Grade: A
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