If there’s a demonstrable critique to be leveled at the band’s work thus far, it’s that their high minded aspiration of creating pop music as fine art has at times sacrificed emotional immediacy for a clinical level of technical precision and a meticulously wrought aesthetic complexity. Each member plays a critical role in the cultivation of this sound with Droste and Daniel Rossen trading off on lead vocals, guitars and keys while drummer Chris Bear and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor breathe life and energy into the band’s baroque compositions, assembling rhythmic foundations that are both understated and deceptively complex. As more and more of their indie rocking peers drifted into the swirling bloops and bleeps of programmed electronic music, Grizzly Bear remained committed to organic instrumentation, achieving their instantly recognizable sound through the harmonic complexities of detuned guitars and multilayered voices, accentuated by intricate yet understated rhythms and a fluid, nonlinear approach to the structural arrangement of these elements.
From the project’s modest beginnings as Ed Droste’s lo-fi home recording project, through Yellow House’s psych-folk experimentations and culminating with Veckatimest’s ornately detailed indie-pop, Grizzly Bear’s defining characteristic throughout has been a hunger for perfection. Grizzly Bear is a band that has spent its entire career pushing against the boundaries of possibility within its own inherently limited medium of popular song.
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