Photo of Julie Adams by Loomis Dean from LIFE magazine, c. 1954
My music tastes are pretty simple. I like catchy pop/rock music that has a twist to it that makes it interesting. Radio pop is fun to sing along to, but it never holds my attention for too long. On the other hand, impenetrable experimental music is interesting, but without the hooks it just washes over me without leaving an impression. I've been listening to Veckatimest, the new Grizzly Bear record, multiple times a day for about a week, and I'm just starting to find my way into it. It's not impenetrable, but it is JUST SO DENSE that it's taking me a little while to find my handholds. I'd like to spend another month with it before writing about it, but I'm already just about the last person on earth to weigh in anyway. So, I'm still in the "learning" phase, but I can already say that Veckatimest is easily one of my favorites of 2009.
Grizzly Bear's last album, Yellow House, was hard to get into because there was such a stark contrast between the two stellar pop songs ("Knife" and "On a Neck, On a Spit") and the more ambitious baroque songs that made up the rest of the album. Veckatimest has this issue, but to a lesser degree - there are still two pop songs that lift the album to stratospheric heights (this time, its "Two Weeks" and "While You Wait for the Others"), but this time the there are plenty of other songs on the album are almost as immediate. The album's two standouts have the advantage of being familiar - since they were premiered live on Letterman and KCRW (respectively) last year, I've been anticipating the studio versions. But there's plenty of other great stuff here. Opener "Southern Point" is a favorite of mine (and I rarely like opening tracks) with a busy, swirling arrangement that pulls me into the album like an auditory whirlpool. "All We Ask" is one I enjoy more and more as I listen to it - the first time you hear it, you're not on tenterhooks waiting for the big choral-vocals-and-handclaps finale, and that's half the fun. The closing ballad "Foreground" is probably my favorite Ed Droste vocal performance (I'd almost say that he is outshined by Daniel Rossen's numbers on this album) and is based on a simple crystalline piano riff that contrasts with the busy arrangements of the earlier songs.
I've talked about the early and late songs in the album, but the middle section is still mysterious. I get the impression that I will eventually like it best, but this is an album that reveals itself in an unhurried way. There's plenty to bring me back again and again, but there's plenty of new things to enjoy with each listen. Only a few things grate - the lyric of "Dory" is uncharacteristically weak and conspicuous for a band that doesn't lean heavily on its words. And the penultimate track "I Live With You" doesn't do anything that isn't done better elsewhere on the record. But the other ten songs have no trouble justifying their existence.
I thought about posting some song other than "While You Wait for the Others", which is available in a zillion places on the Interwebs, but who am I kidding? This song is possibly the best thing that Grizzly Bear has done, and Daniel Rossen's lead vocal is the reason. Where some Grizzly Bear songs have multiple focal points, "While You Wait for the Others" draws the listener straight to Rossen's voice. As the song builds from its simple guitar-based verse arrangement to the swaying, layered vocals of the chorus, everything adds to the lead vocal line instead of distracting from it. And the bridge is a true work of beauty, with the vocals bouncing around until Ed Droste's aching moan soars up to wash everything else away and lead into the final chorus. Just for fun, you can flashback to a year ago to see Grizzly Bear's first public performance of the song on KCRW here. You can tell that they knew that they were on to something good.
"While You Wait for the Others" by Grizzly Bear
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