Austinist CD Review: Grizzly Bear's Yellow House

Grizzly Bear's oceanic and blissful version of psychedelic folk music has dazzled listeners since their debut, Horn of Plenty in 2004, but their latest release, Yellow House, finds Edward Droste surrounded by a full band and a somewhat thicker sound, which is sure to please existing fans who might have been concerned about a sophomore slump.

Folk music has become a term used fairly loosely in the independent music scene, partially because there are incredible artists making music that reflects the genre's origins, and partially because there's really no other way to describe the sound. Psychedelic folk ("freak folk", if you're nasty), however, sounds like something you make up when you've perhaps tied a few too many on and find yourself toying with the idea of cross-genre experimentation with instruments like a cigarette machine, or a vacuum. Yet, artists like Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective, Joanna Newsom, Espers, and DeVotchKa create music that beckons the memory of Donovan and T.Rex, giving shape to the term as we use it today.

But listening to Yellow House confuses the categorization. Where Devendra or Animal Collective raise the howling impatience of folk music's heart to the forefront, Grizzly Bear softly tunes it into a wave of melody, a gentle urge that works through the songs like a rising tide. This is probably the reason why so many describe the album as a natatory experience: songs ebb and flow, rise and fall, wash in and wash out with grace and simplicity, all while developing their own sort of landscape. These songs exist in their own dimension, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

What does this mean?

Probably that Grizzly Bear is freak folk for normals.

There's no yelping, there's no crying at the moon, there's no garbage can impailing, and there's only a slight shiver of insistence as "On a Neck, On a Spit" climbs to its vantage point, filtered drums and brisk acoustics shuffling into momentum like a slow decision being called into action. Through "Colorado" and "Lullaby", voices echo through sparse melody like ghosts through a hallway - there is nothing "freak" about these songs, these songs are psalms for ghosts and lovers.

And like anything pelagic, Yellow House can rock in and out of its own sea-sickness. The sputtering of "Knife"'s drums combined with the illusory layers of vocals meet a tempo and (brief) key change with a clatter that stands out on the album as both a high point and a head-scratching one: there aren't very many moments of self-inflicted abruption on this album, so when they hit, they're quite memorable.

As "Central and Remote" helps you recover from the brief moment of disorientation administered by "The Knife", its domesticated harmonies wafting out over xylophone like a prescient hymn, you find yourself able to settle back into the comfort of the -- by now -- familiar rhythm of the album. Even the expectant zaftig occurring around a minute or so into the song is absorbed quickly and swallowed without nuisance - lending a greater weight to those moments of abruption mentioned above.

If anything at all, the songs from Yellow House are an uneventful pregnancy: full of development, possibility and wonder, nurtured in the enceinte frame of its landscape. Just as a healthy woman with child is pleased to report an uneventful pregnancy, Grizzly Bear can safely report that their child has arrived bouncing, peaceful and reliable. For those listeners who gravitate towards minimalist maneuvers of climax, the album will shine as one of the best of the year. For those of us who find it harder and harder to distinguish between something that is simply meandering and something that is purposefully meandering, it will take a few more listens to become attached.

Grizzly Bear have mastered the art of the slow introduction, the patient rise to fame, and the retraction of commitment, offering ten songs that develop deliberately as a whole quite nicely, despite moments of wind-gust assisted loss of balance and sleepy naps on forearms. As the off-time and stumbling drums of "Colorado" quietly follow the arrangement down into the valley, one final, persistant beat rises above the fray, stopping suddenly, like the end of march. Whether we've heard the final heartbeats of the yellow house or simply been the unfortunate ones left outside as its door swings closed is unclear, but chances are you'll want to peer in a window and look for a light on, some soft glimmer of life, eager to let you in.

[Grizzly Bear Official Site]
[Grizzly Bear MySpace]
[Warp Records]

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