Grizzly Bear "Yellow House" (Warp)
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Wednesday. Dec 06, 12:00 PM
Under musical layers and harmonies: great songwriting.

Naturally, musicians listen to music differently than non-musicians. When contemplating my review for Yellow House, I felt like I needed to break my current musician-minded listening habits and listen to the album as a non-musician would. Upon achieving this, I discovered the album for what it was meant to be: a collection of beautifully written songs.

Before this realization, however, I found myself paying too much attention to the seemingly detached layers that each song has in multiplicity. Every member of Grizzly Bear sings and all are multi-instrumentalists. The amount of vocal harmonies and layered instruments became an obstruction that I yearned to pass, perhaps out of a sense of the deeper content I had yet to discover. And so I kept on listening.

During a late night Youtube escapade, I came across a video of Grizzly Bear that changed the way I listened to them. In the video, the band are huddled together in a Parisian bathroom during their 2006 European tour. Equipped only with a guitar, a clarinet, and a melodica, the band play through the song “Shift” off of their first album. I was struck by its beauty. With the music stripped to its bones and each member contributing vocal harmonies, the band were able to create an aesthetic in a live setting that most bands can’t do on record (and certainly not live). After watching the video numerous times, I decided to listen to Yellow House again, but this time with a refreshed sense of what the band were trying to achieve.

By focusing on the roots of each track, I was able to appreciate the great songwriting that Yellow House contains. With time, I began to understand the added layers and excessive harmonies. I can now say that I truly love this album. From the chilling climax of “Lullabye” to the luscious outro of “Knife,” and from the heartfelt refrain of “On a Neck, on a Spit” to the jam-like “Colorado,” the moments on Yellow House, however long they took to sink in, are ones I will never forget. Grizzly Bear’s newest effort has become a part of my permanent listening collection, which is the highest compliment I can give.
www.grizzly-bear.net
www.warprecords.com

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Chris Scheffey

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