Grizzly Bear

by Eddie Robson

Grrr.

""The Misleading Band Name Police are on their way round to deal with Grizzly Bear right now: there is nothing fierce or grizzly about this New York band whatsoever.""

The Misleading Band Name Police are on their way round to deal with Grizzly Bear right now: there is nothing fierce or grizzly about this New York band whatsoever. However, there is a distinctly rural quality to their songs and the treatment of them on this, their second album, as the gentle melodies seem to float in a sea of acoustic twangles and humming synths.

It’s the kind of material you’d normally expect to hear presented in ‘charming’ ramshackle demo form, but although there’s an element of lo-fi echo in the production of ‘Yellow House’, there’s a lot of layering and careful construction in evidence. It dips deep into ambient territory, and as is often the case with records of this genre, it can be difficult to get a handle on and will often drop into the background. Let it envelop you and you will be rewarded.

There are assertive moments, such as the fraught ‘Lullabye’ and the fractured ‘Colorado’, but it could possibly do with a couple more (at least by positioning ‘Colorado’ at the end, they ensure you notice when the album’s finished). A little more variation in tone and this band could produce this decade’s equivalent of Boards Of Canada’s ‘Music Has The Right To Children’, and we can only hope they have a try.

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