Critiques CD: Grizzly Bear | Shields

2009’s Veckatimest is a hard act to follow, and so it seems Grizzly Bear didn’t exactly aspire to a followup with Shields. With strikingly lucid production, meticulous arrangements and unprecedentedly present vocal delivery, early-released singles “Sleeping Ute” and “Yet Again” are potent, cerebral instantiations of Grizzly Bear’s aesthetic. Openhearted lyrics lead the songs where sullen but comely predecessor Yellow House (2006) had Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen’s voices leveled with the cadence of their instruments. But the the album’s eight other tracks are at once too conventional and too foreign from what the Brooklynites do best to really sink in – they’ve achieved some refreshing, catchy melodies and placating rhythms, but it feels like a void is left where their weighty, reverberant sound and slow-paced drama used to anchor the whole experience. September 23rd at L'Olympia.