Grizzly Bear
Yellow House
Warp Records

The term “avant-folk” seems to be getting attached to any band or artist that features a heavy use of acoustic guitar and steers clear of conventional singer/songwriter fare. It’s a shame too because it tends to put those folks at a disadvantage, conjuring up images of poster boy for the avant-folk movement Devendra Banhart and his faux-naif antics. Hopefully with a tour opening up for fellow sonic daytrippers TV On The Radio, will help Grizzly Bear avoid such associations and show them to be the bold new step forward for the world of psychedelic and avant garde pop music that they truely are.

Yellow House is one of those records that will take your preconceptions of what a song could be and tears them down to the framework.The music here teems with little well-honed details and practically swirls from the speakers in Technicolor. That’s not to say that they attempt to overwhelm their listeners with sound and fury. Rather, the band keeps many songs wide open allowing those small touches to burst forth. For example, the guitar lines that are sprinkled through out the stunning “Lullabye” are calm and understated despite their fuzzy presentation which helps to keep the track building and swaying until the drums kick in almost two-thirds of the way through the song. Even then, the percussion stays in the background, thrumming to the tune of circadian rhythms.

Associations with the folk idiom are almost understandable considering the rustic feel that the band conjurs up on several tracks. The galloping acoustic guitars that keep the verses aloft in “On a Neck, On a Spit” or the plaintive vocal work that marks “Central & Remote” can be traced back to artists like Donovan or Pentangle. Yet, throughout those songs, there is still a striving to push the boundaries of typical songwriting and the approach to one’s instruments. Verses and choruses blur together into washes of imagery and ideas and the playing (particularly of percussionist Christopher Bear) attempts to work around the song rather than through it, adding shading and focus that could have fallen by the wayside.

There are so few bands attempting the Herculean feats that Grizzly Bear handles with such ease and precision on this album. It is definitely one of the best collections of music to come about in the last five years and will hopefully cause some shockwaves that will continue to reverberate for years to come. You might think this all trumped-up hyperbole, but I doubt you will feel that same way once you give this album a listen.

MP3
On a Neck, On a Spit

Website
http://www.grizzly-bear.net
http://www.myspace.com/grizzlybear