Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear

Listening to Grizzly Bear’s second album Yellow House (2006) is a bit like a lucid dream – each sublime track floats in and out of your consciousness. A year later they put out Friend, an EP containing remixes and unreleased material; it included a beautifully haunting cover of ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)’, originally released in 1962 and performed by Phil Spector’s girl-group protégées The Crystals. Melodious and wispy, singer-songwriter Daniel Rossen carries the song – the clarity and tone of his voice holds its own amid the richness of the score. Having said that, the harmonies attempted and perfected by Grizzly Bear are by nature not quite the same as your standard pop/lo-fi/folk/experimental rock band.

Now in full bloom on their third and latest album, Veckatimest, the band still possesses the same delicate sound heard in Yellow House. However, this exquisite musical tenderness should not be mistaken for frailness. Instead, every reverb, chord and drum beat on this album establishes a firm balance between music and lyric, from the catchy, poppier track ‘Two Weeks’ to the melodramatic, bass drum-driven ‘Ready, Able’, sung by guitarist Ed Droste.

Accompanied by fellow bandmates Christopher Bear and Chris Taylor, Rossen and Droste interweave mature chords and folksy, well-crafted riffs that inspire psychedelic sensations you’ll find it impossible to forget. There’s something about GB that sets them apart from the homogenous indie-rock brethren – perhaps this is the reason why the band is signed to eclectic electronica label Warp Records instead of a major label. And for the album’s first single, entitled ‘Cheerleader’, take it as a celebratory introduction to what may yet be the band’s best album.