Music Review: Grizzly Bear - Vekatimest

Score: 90 out of 100

To say that I have had high expectations for Grizzly Bear’s follow up to the hauntingly successful Yellow House, is an understatement. I became a convert to Grizzly Bear when I saw them perform, co-headlining with the Los Angeles Phil at Walt Disney Hall in 2008 (yeah, I was officially uncool until then). That night I couldn’t peal my eyes from their performance. They were a captivating construction of folksy choral arrangements and washes of experimental sounds and loops. Compelling at worst and absolutely moving at best. They revealed a few songs from their new LP Vekatimest. Some songs took a shape similar to songs like He Hit Me and the mix of Little Brother found on the Friend EP, with bursts of guitar, and plaintive lyrics.

Now hearing the new album,Vekatimest retains the haunted atmosphere that defined their breakthrough album, but in a much more controlled way. The sound is more transparent, and its psychology seems less clouded. Where the landscape is obscured in Yellow House, the horizon line is clear in Vekatimest. Songs like the opening Southern Point, Two Weeks, and Cheerleader certainly won’t disappoint fans and may even surprise them.

For me the highlight of the album is the track Ready, which begins with a thumping base rhythm which reminds me of something from PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me, (without the wailing angst, of course). This boiling is punctuated by washes of guitar and Ed Droste’s melancholic calls to a lover in transition. He sings “make a decision with a kiss” and about walking home alone through the snow (appropriately dramatic). About half way through the track, the song shifts to something new. Waves of harmonies, starry synths and downright soulful vocal effects cascade the emotional content to new heights, reinforced by roaring guitars at the song’s finish.

All We Ask, is another spooky tune, in which the dynamics of a relationship are described through the subtle details of domesticity, where tiny gestures are magnified sonically and emotionally. The ballad shares its slower pacing with a few other songs on the album. Where some of these songs tend to harmonize into oblivion, All We Ask is intimately toothy. Its sonically smooth surface does not obscure the desirous swells and aching romanticism that bites as much as soothes.

While You Wait for the Others is another high point, a great example of the wonderful confluence of the groups 4 vocalists. The song rocks through Daniel Rosen’s calm and collected verses to be broken by the energetic calls of the entire band. The nostalgia that pervades all of Grizzly Bear’s music weighs heavy upon this song, with its warbled retro synth notes, and its mid-century poppy structure. This sense of age and history, while at the same time feeling experimental, fresh and expansive is descriptive of the entire LP.

Vekatimest is a success for many reasons. It solidifies the type of work that Grizzly Bear does, but does not type cast; they managed to expand while still refining. The songs are familiar and alien at the same time. Vekatimest is an accessible collection of music that is relentless in its detail, and holds layers of surprise upon each listen.