Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest

© Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest will rope you in.

This album stalked me. Earlier this year, every blog and fanzine was gushing about Grizzly Bear's latest release, Veckatimest. I sampled a couple of snippets online and ran the other way every time – the album felt too slow, too precious, too...introspective. Not your usual shoe-gaze, '80s retread or garage-skronk racket. But eventually, it wore me down.

There are a lot of new bands out there rediscovering the power of harmonies and multi-layered vocals –their parents must have left out the Crosby, Stills & Nash albums – and Grizzly Bear is part of this movement (that includes Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes). At its best, Grizzly Bear makes music that is dynamic, joyous and full of rapture. Their arrangements are built around drums, guitars and fuzz-soaked bass and strings. Veckatimest's opener, "Southern Point," begins just this way – with strummed acoustic guitars and lush vocals – until it builds, and explodes, into a holy groove.

The album's spare instrumentation is recorded beautifully throughout, but Grizzly Bear's secret weapon is their voices – the band's vocal harmonies are incredible. Combined, these elements give their music a transcendent, almost devotional quality. It's this spiritual quality that makes it impossible to just give Veckatimest a casual listen. Listen to songs like "Two Weeks" and "Cheerleader," and you'll find something incredibly new and yet familiar in the melodies. This makes Veckatimest feel like an easy album to pull off – until you take the time to really listen to it. When you do, you'll discover the beauty in its complexity.

Having raised the roof for Veckatimest, I have to add a disclaimer: it's not a perfect album. Its power diminishes for a bit after the first 6 or so tracks and then it sort or recedes into the background and finishes up with a whisper, with the pastoral "Foreground." But because the album feels like it was conceived to stay together (not to be cut up and listened to as singles) you're inclined to forgive the less interesting moments for the greater good of the album.

And when you tire of Veckatimest, you'll be inclined to dig up Grizzly Bear's back catalog to see what you may have missed. Start with 2004's Horn of Plenty to hear sketches of what they would later become. Yellow House, released in 2006 is more fleshed-out and closer to Veckatimest, but it still doesn't match what they've captured in 2009. In Ear Park from Department of Eagles (a side project for Grizzly Bear singer-songwriter Daniel Rossen) offers a lateral view of where they are today. Taken altogether, you'll hear an amazing arc that starts tentatively with a lo-fi vibe that results in the fully realized Veckatimest.