Grizzly Bear's roar will knock you right over

Though only the four members of psychedelic rock group Grizzly Bear took the stage June 9 in Bloomington’s Buskirk-Chumley Theater, they sounded like an army.

The Brooklyn band’s buzz has severely snowballed since its latest album, Veckatimest, was released last month, and its set proved the hype worthwhile.

To a sold-out college crowd, Grizzly Bear unleashed over an hour of its haunting, obsessively orchestrated chamber pop. Band founder and vocalist Edward Droste’s ethereal melodies, harmonized with guitarist Daniel Rossen, gave each song a deeply personal touch — one couple even began to slow dance during “Cheerleader” — but Rossen’s guitar bursts were thunderous.

That mixture (Christopher Bear’s drumming amplifying Rossen’s massive, forceful sound; bassist Chris Taylor’s flute and oboe reinforcing Droste’s quiet subtlety) captured the crowd while allowing fans to get lost inside their heads.

That’s not an easy task, and as the band swept through the piano-led bounce of “Two Weeks” and the crawling swell of “Knife,” it became obvious why Grizzly Bear’s been compared to other mind-melters like Radiohead and Animal Collective.



But while there’s an almost overwhelming seriousness to Grizzly Bear’s music, the band members were anything but austere.

“It’s been four years since we’ve played Bloomington,” said Droste. “And I’m sure some of the eight people that were here last time came tonight.”

Tunes like “While You Wait For the Others,” with its churning guitars, plodding bass and delicate chorus, seemed constantly on the edge of imploding. That’s how Grizzly Bear, a band featuring a harp and a clarinet at times, manages to hit harder than any heavy metal act out there.

By building walls of intensity from a foundation of whispers - only to let it crumble, song after song, on top of the audience - the band has cultivated one of the most exciting and emotionally draining shows in the indie scene.

While so many bands are busy finding beauty in chaos, Grizzly Bear is searching for chaos in beauty. And in Bloomington last night, they certainly found it.

My weekend of Grizzly Bear submission

Brothers and sisters,

It is my hope with Gravity Rides Everything to present thoughtful and thought-provoking discourse on music so as to push readers and listeners to think and appreciate music on a more thorough level. As in, no silly over-hyping, no crazed-fan freakout — I want to keep a weight to the music, hence Gravity Rides Everything.

But damn it, it sure as hell is hard not to have a mini-freak out after hearing Grizzly Bear's new record, Veckatimest.

The copy came to me through a friend in town to give a poetry reading — both the work and the people behind it are quite fantastic. Check 'em out here.

The Brooklynites told me they'd been jamming to Veckatimest consistently on their reading-tour of the past week — they'd fall asleep and be brought back to life by the sweeping sounds of the record, finding themselves in a new city, new surroundings. Thinking about how gigantic each song on the record becomes, only to sink back to the shadows, it sounds like a pretty beautiful experience.

Well, this was Thursday. Now Sunday night, I've fully submitted to the power of the record. I can't turn it off. I've tried, sure, by playing other new music (Thanks you Heartless Bastards and Thursday, but you just can't help) and even old standbys (Good effort, Band of Horses), but nothing can draw me away from this record.

I will likely bite my tongue for typing this at somepoint, as I'm sure that my life will soon be significantly less swallowed by Grizzly Bear, but right now it feels right: Veckatimist is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard.


These harmonies are otherworldly — a chorus of ghosts singing from a dark corner in an abandoned house. The guitars alternate between ground-rumbling and barely-whispers, sweeping you up like a strong wind and twirling you around, over and over and upside down and inside out. And then the piano. Oh, lord the piano. Jetting in and out of each track like a devilish and clever child, beautiful, full of life.

The whole album feels like the ocean, it's tides changing over and again, each bringing something different to shore. The scope is both a huge, endless open field and the tiny space under the bed of a scared child where he hides from monsters.

It is absolutely gorgeous. I honestly cannot remember hearing another album that hit me the way Veckatimist has. Maybe The Decemberists' "Her Majesty," and that was back in 2003.

End of weekend count: 21. I've listened to the record 21 times through. That's over 1000 minutes, over 17 hours. I feel like a drug addict. But when the smack is this good, I don't wanna stop.


Here are a few of the most-leaked tracks, in the best video forms I can find 'em. Enjoy. I know you will.