Grizzly Bear - Yellow House

Yellow House lifts its nose at traditional pop conventions, huddles by the fire to watch Bambi on VHS, and puts out its cigarettes in "freak folk's" eyes. Freak Folk, we barely knew thee. - by Connor McGlynn

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I live in a fairly small town in Rhode Island called Little Compton, with a population of about 3,000. The land is very spread out: rolling fields, farms, woods, and plenty of beaches. Because of this, nighttime in my town is completely serene, as dark as night gets. On a good, clear night, the sky opens up to reveal thousands upon thousands of sparkling dots: shooting stars, radiant starlight, and waves of allure clearly not meant for this world. This wondrous sight, however, does not come easy. It's not for impetuous passers-by, nor does it reward nonchalance and passivity. Sure, anyone can spot the north star or the big dipper, but full scale beauty takes time and effort to achieve; eyes need time to adjust to darkness.

Grizzly Bear's sophomore release, Yellow House, is an album ambiguously feathered with both instant likeablility and mind-numbing complexity. It's not hard to spot and enjoy the album's immediate standout tracks, such as the doo-wop jam "Knife" and the guarded "Central & Remote." Tracks such as these are riddled throughout the album. Their melodies, such as the various layered vocal harmonies on "Knife" and the slow, taunting whistling on "Plans," are exceedingly imaginative and inviting, not to mention some of the loveliest and catchiest melodies I've heard since Brian Wilson's SMiLE or Sufjan's Illinois. However, the chance that you'll get hooked within the first few seconds of a song is fairly low. In a world of iPod Shuffles and 30 second previews, not to mention thousands of music blogs posting thousands of MP3s a day, music's increasingly critical finger is always on the trigger ready to press "next." That is by no means the way to listen to Yellow House.

Many of the songs on this album open fairly slowly, with extended instrumental intros and low, droning arpeggios. Because most of the songs lack a fail-safe system of verse-chorus-verse, its easy to feel overwhelmed, confused, and possibly conflicted... but this is all part of what beautifies the album. Induced emotion like that is not only hard to put into words, but hard to take as well. Some refrains, like the opening flutter of "Easier" that begins the album, is entirely bewildering, yet strangely comforting at the same time. While you're sitting there wondering what has come over you, you'll realize that the answer is simple: it's pure bliss. The song progresses with a decidedly strange, overbearing vocal harmony, a sonic representation of "follow the bouncing ball" from any number of your favorite Disney cartoons... and that's not surprising, considering most of these songs could easily sneak their way into Bambi, particularly the nightmare scene, and we'd all be none-the-wiser.

There are many casual (read: lazy) journalists that find satisfaction in grouping Grizzly Bear in with other "animal name" bands, specifically Animal Collective, Wolf Eyes, or Panda Bear, thus placed under the continuously annoying "freak folk" genre. What absolves Yellow House from adorning such a label (one that has now become an uneasy staple in alternative music), aside from not yet being blessed by his highness Devendra, is Grizzly Bear's tremendous propensity for depth and activity (as opposed to passivity). One weakness, however generalized, with "freak-folk" is a sense of dispassionate disregard within the creation and output of music. That's not to say the output is worse or bad because of that-- I loved Cripple Crow just as much as anyone else--but it is to say that while on one hand, "freak folk" is more free, rawer, more elemental, it nevertheless can be called out for the too-often causal approach to its creation. Grizzly Bear completely and passionately reject such procedure. The only thing "freak" about Grizzly Bear is the unusually outstanding, brilliant quality of their music.

Yellow House is certainly not an album to be missed. When a piece of music comes along that has the power to completely sway emotions, to become a literal presense in the room, among your surroundings, it becomes a piece of you. Yellow House won't be life changing for all of us, but given the time and attention it undoubtedly deserves, anyone can fall in love with this album. Beyond its walls, above its atmospheric soundscapes, dispersed throughout its never-ending universe of sound and beauty are hundreds and hundreds of beckoning notes, chords, harmonies, euphonies, overtones, and melodies staring down at us, staring deep inside each and every one of us, revealing things we never knew existed. We should all be thankful we can be part of such introspection and discovery.

[MP3] Grizzly Bear - Easier