Hypebusting- pt.2 (Grizzly Bear)

[UPDATE: I have sense come around to this record quite a bit, to the point where, were this the barren wasteland of great music like last year, it would have been in contention for my top 10 of the year. As 2009 has been lousy with great records, it still won't be on my list this year, but it's a solid B+/A- record, and well worth your time.]

Continuing our series of reviews with Mike from Central Target, which takes us to Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest

Mike: it's weird hearing an acoustic guitar now.

Yeah, this is a huge downshift.

Mike: Comparatively, this is like Neil Young to me right now

Pretty decent comparison, actually

Mike: dusty, dramatic Ennio Morricone soundtrack music

I like that surge. That was quite nice.

Mike: yeah, that's a nice rush. It's already certainly more trad-pop leaning

But that's not a bad thing

Mike: i'm liking this backwards tape thing

but after all the pretty ambience in the earlier record, it sounds a lot darker to me

The harmonies are quite nice. It's much more downcast

Mike: yeah. Ooh... another nice shift in tone in the song

I am really enjoying this

Mike: it's nice

I will say though, I'm having trouble clearing my mood from the last album, which was so much less organic. I feel like I'm a barn or something, wood all around.

This guy's voice reminds me of someone I cannot place

Mike: someone from the mid-80s, and I can't place who that is either, for me

Ugh, that's going to bother me.

Mike: On another day, I'd most likely feel a different way, but I think I, so far, prefer the Animal Collective.

I'm the opposite.

Mike: Distant fingerpicked electric guitar combined with no hooks? Tha has a home, my friend. And that home is called "Secretly Canadian".

Well, at least nothing here has annoyed me yet. There are hooks here, I just think they are kind of subdued. This third track is not nearly as good as the first two, though.

Mike: This isn't bad, but for me it may as well be by Songs: Ohia or something (the album, not the song.)

I do think the first two songs were better, as well.

See, I don't see that as a bad thing.

Mike: True, I like that type of music.

I can see having this on in the background. I can at least see a place for it. I don't know what my mood would need to be to want to hear that Animal Collective again.

Mike: This just doesn't distinguish itself from the pack at all, really. I guess it's determined genre-sitting annoys me.

Is it wrong to judge this by what it ISN'T? Like, I want to like this a lot, but I'm mad at it because it's so average

It's pleasant, well-mannered folk-pop

Mike: and that it's averageness has annoyed me annoys me even more. It's basically a hate-spiral opening up and swallowing my heart.

I'd make a snide Palace comparison, but I've only listened to Palace enough to know i don't like them

JEFF BUCKLEY; that's the voice. Reminds me of Jeff Buckley.

It's Buckley without the Zeppelin fixation.

Mike: Yerp.

Mike: Not just the falsetto, either. It just took falsetto to help me realize.

I think I like the other vocalist better. The one who sang the first track. A little less dramatic.

Mike: yeah, the other guy was a little less affected was certainly my preferred vocalist

I know he has a side project band, Department of Eagles, I want to say. I might check that out.

Mike: I can't say that this is bad, but based on this, I wouldn't be interested in the side project. There's nothing offensive about it to me, it's just boring to me. Like Band Of Horses.

fair enough. It's certainly nothing especially exciting. I've already forgotten how the previous songs sounded.

Mike: Yeah, me neither.

It's making my mind wander to that "indie rock hype" game where you combine two unlikely artists and put them in a weird situation. Once you decode what it's saying, it's meaningless.

"Neil Young meets MF Doom in a Saugerties, NY chicken coop"

"James Taylor and Sun Ra having a cookout on the moon"

"Van Morrison and Phillip Glass guest star on an episode of 'Little House On The Prairie"

"The Raveonettes and Bootsy Collins doing the limbo in Cancun"

Mike: is this the loop from the end of Sgt. Pepper that starts off "Dory"? The one in the locked groove?

ooh! I like yours!

Philip Glass on Little House is an amazing image

Mike: just giving a creepy look to Michael Landon the whole time

Nice

Mike: that look

Awesome. Did you ever see the Landon bloopers that were floating around videogum?

Mike: No... I'll have to look that up, though.

Good stuff? Little House or Highway to Heaven -era?

Little House

Michael Landon was awesome

Mike: Weird... I wanna see those.

Really?

Absolutely

Mike: I always thought he was supposed to be a drunk or something, like an abusive a**hole

I could be completely wrong though.

Right, Michael Landon's estate?

heh heh heh...

You know, that's about as good a review of this record as we can give. It's less interesting to talk about than Michael Landon bloopers.

Mike: I was just thinking that. There's this little punky sixteenth-note rhythm under this that I keep waiting to just explode, but it never does, it just turns into harp glissandos

I think that's why I liked the first two songs better than anything following, they actually let out some of the building energy.

Mike: This track is like a boring, dirge-like version of Animal Collective.
"Ready, Able" for those of you not listening along.

that's a fair comparison

Mike: now, "About Face"'s verses sound like me messing around in my room on a song before I write words or a hook or a second riff

This one is just teasing me. They up the volume on a distorted guitar, then cut it out right before it would slam in. Perfectly appropriately, I might add.

Yep, Grizzly Bear hate you

That is a really, really effective tease

Mike: This is like the worst aspects of Jeff Buckley without any of the good.

at least, "Hold Still", is the shortest song on the album.

It's about as static a song as I've heard

At what point does it go from a song to just playing a few notes over and over?

Mike: Never.

It never did.

"Big Rock Song"?

"While You Wait For The Others" isn't any more interesting to me, but at least it's a little more propulsive.

I think "Two Weeks" was also a big rock song, compared to the others.

I like the chorus to this one quite a bit.

Mike: It's certainly a standout for me

Oh, good, here comes the big string & chorus-laden ballad right near the end of the album

of course

Mike: a saxophone trio in there too... huh...

this is the "need to get a beer" portion of their live set, I'm sure

Mike: I'd need to find another venue

This album is largely hookless, meandering, a bit self-important, and enamored of the texture that folk music would add to their sound, without bringing any actual other elements of folk music.

As I told you when we spoke, my wife's response to this band's live show was perfect. They had been on for a good thirty minutes, and she turns to me and says, "when are they going to start playing?"

With a few exceptions, I think that review is dead on.

Mike: She is either wonderfully innocent, or the craftiest, meanest, sharpest comic I've ever known.

either way, you win

I think it's both

Mike: Oh god, there's another song to listen to.

Yeah, "I Live With You" gets my award for the most overblown pile of nothing that I've heard in a while.

Mike: If there had been a center to that candy, I might have liked it, but it was like biting into what you think is a cherry cordial and finding out it's only the thin, outer chocolate shell.

At least the last song was pleasant enough

Completely dull, but not aggravating

Tomorrow we'll finish up with a look at Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca