Grizzly Bear - Shields

Warp229 is the upcoming album by Grizzly Bear. Released September 18 2012.

Track listing

1. Sleeping Ute
2. Speak in Rounds
3. Adelma
4. Yet Again
5. The Hunt
6. A Simple Answer
7. What's Wrong
8. gun-shy
9. Half Gate
10. Sun in Your Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk3tURx8a2Q

never liked anything by these guys before, but "Sleeping Ute" is awesome

― mizzell, Wednesday, June 6, 2012 11:04 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah great song

theres something Dirty Projectos-y/Deerhoof-y about it.

awesome sound.

ya i'm a fan of their usual boring selves but this turbulent thing is a good vibe for them.

it's yes-y

it's weird I think earlier on in their career they kept getting compared to akron family and I couldn't see it cuz those dudes were like 1000x better musicians w/ 1000x better ideas or w/e but this song is p akron

also idk akfam don't really exist now or something

they're definitely embracing their interesting side here, i like it.

akron family kinda jammy tho aren't they, this is focused

great! indie record of the year?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bteY_fs3Y18

it's weird I think earlier on in their career they kept getting compared to akron family and I couldn't see it cuz those dudes were like 1000x better musicians w/ 1000x better ideas or w/e but this song is p akron

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Thursday, 7 June 2012 23:17 (1 month ago) Permalink

If by "those dudes" you mean akron family I strongly disagree with this statement

Akron had two ideas. Which worked pretty well for an album and an EP

I did mean akfam by those dudes

I like both bands tho! I'm just saying that that earlier song was the first grizzly bear song that lived up to that comparison or w/e

http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2012/07/Grizzly-Bear-Shields.jpg

new album now is called Shields and is set to be released on September 18, 2012.

i think Warp229 is actually the catalog number.

love the newer song as well, this is going to be a great album.

i kind of liked Warp229 as an album title.

Yet Again sounds like Cass McCombs

Is it weird that I think Yet Again sounds a little like Hot Chip?

I think it just sounds like Coldplay.

Coldplay? Nonsense. This is really good. Seems to be continuing in the tumbling momentum and melodicism of Southern Point, which was my favourite off Veckatimest.

Yeah, I really like this and I'm anticipating a slew of high praise, the highest praise

Somehow they pull off sounding both like a dusty artefact and something modern and new, too.

I love how those two tracks sound. Very band in a room.

Nick, you genuinely hear melodicism of note on Yet Again? I like GB, but that melody gets on my nerves.

no one's mentioned whiney chilling and eating BBQ with them in Park Slope.

That definitely must have occurred pre-Yet Again.

no one's mentioned whiney chilling and eating BBQ with them in Park Slope.
--a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Can't believe you didn't go with "grillin and chillin"

I dunno if I'd use "chillin" to describe their expressions in the photos.

2nd song sounds like The Dodos

2nd song ("Speak in rounds") is a skyscraping career high afaic. Excellent marriage of Ed + Dan songwriting styles, love hearing Ed sing like Dan, Dan sing like Ed, love love love. I'm a sucker for the motorik style and VI -> #vi tho

so i guess you like the record?

nah it's shit

'Gun-Shy' is the track I'm loving at the moment.

Nick, you genuinely hear melodicism of note on Yet Again? I like GB, but that melody gets on my nerves.

― some white dude (Turangalila), Saturday, 1 September 2012 23:07 (3 days ago)

I'm talking more of the album as a whole than Yet Again, but I certainly don't find it annoying.

I don't get the same kind of melodicism from Grizzly Bear as I do from The Beatles or Bacharach - to my (untrained) ears what GB do is far more oblique and strange.

Half Gate, guys!

Enjoying this record a lot. I couldn't even tell you what the stand out tracks are, it's taking a while to sink in. Which is great tbh.

Sun In Your Eyes is a big fat glorious psychedelic epic

Not being a huge fan of this band I must admit this album is doing something right. I Keep coming back to it and liking it more and more with each listen.

http://pitchfork.com/news/47798-stream-the-new-grizzly-bear-album-shields/

9.1 well deserved even though I would have rated it higher. By far their best album.

Not being a huge fan of this band I must admit this album is doing something right. I Keep coming back to it and liking it more and more with each listen.

― marginal victory, Friday, September 7, 2012

otm. i didn't "get" Veckawhateverist at all, but this just *sounds* great.

Local HMV hasn't even got any copies of this in yet; they're due 25 but they haven't arrived from the distributor yet. 12 years ago, my brother was the local rep for this distributor, and there's no fucking way they'd not have had copies of an album with this status in stores already; things really have changed.

Shameless self-linking http://www.uncut.co.uk/grizzly-bear-shields-review

That's dull Sick Mouthy. I picked it up on vinyl in Fopp. They must've had a good half dozen plus loads of CD's.

I feel like I'm the only one that's been holding off hearing this until I can get a physical copy. Then again that's how I feel with most new releases these days.

A 9+ review on Pitchfork must boost sales big time. Will be interested to see how much bigger they get.

Got a copy!

does jay-z like this record?

Jay Z loves it. Can't get enough of it. I think i saw him buy like 50 copies at Other Music today during the listening party. He's really REALLY INTO it. Jay LOVES IT

i haven't bought a CD is awhile now, going to buy this one.

I think, a bit like late-period Talk Talk, people sometimes forget or don't notice the bits when Grizzly Bear fucking pummell, and come away with the impression that it's just wistful harmonies and acoustic guitar arpeggios when actually there's a huge amount of dynamism and thumping and drama here too.

I'm sticking picking up new things from "Shields" with each listen. Current favourite moment, 1:40 to 1:50 of "A simple answer" just coming out of the first chorus, a chord change and hinted melody that most people would jump on and ride into the distance, but they just do it once and leave it. I could happily loop that ten seconds for a while.

there are things about this record that i love: how eerie and jazzy is "what's wrong"! how tight are they as a unit on "sleeping ute"! "yet again" sort of reminds me of aimee mann's "the moth" which is a hell of a melody to recall!

but otherwise my attention drifts

finally getting kind of sick of this album after non-stop play for two weeks

Rob M I commend thee to go and get Veckatimest this instant.

Or command, or whatever.

http://sickmouthy.com/2012/10/21/on-grizzly-bear-on-a-sunday-morning/

Newport record shops haven't got Veckawhatever, will take trip to Cardiff to get it this week.

"Gun-Shy" crazily tuneful

Great piece, Nick. Am now thinking I should probably revisit Veckatimest, as I'd never fully warmed to it.

mr mouthy you should hear horn of plenty, it's a great collection of songs. far far removed from what GB have become but I loved it when it came out, and gave it a listen recently and it still stands up.

I disagree, I love Horn of Plenty to bits but don't think it'd be Nick's bag
Although I would recommend to you the A+ Simon Bookish remix of "Eavesdropping"

wasn't aware of this till recently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8rUQLRH844
where these guys are coming from hits home a little more now

Despite the fact that 'Shields' sounds like an open and dynamic production I'm reading lots of talk about the CD version being brickwalled. I picked it up on vinyl so I can't really comment, I have heard 'Veckatimest' on CD and vinyl and I thought they both sounded great.

If it is true it's a real shame that an album as sonically nuanced as ‘Shields’ is as likely as any other to be molested at the mastering stage.

That's crazy talk. It doesn't sound like Diana Krall, certainly, but it sounds great.

I'd like to think so but this doesn't look too good.

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=27146

That means nothing; trust your ears!

Saying that, here's a couple of waveforms.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/th_ScreenShot2012-10-22at102907.png

Top= Speak In Rounds, bottom = While You Wait For The Others.

Yes, it's loud(er than Rid of Me!), but it's not noticably clipped at all, there's plenty of movement, headroom, and, most importantly, it sounds wonderful; the timbres, separation, etc etc etc.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/ScreenShot2012-10-22at102907.png

Fuck you, photobucket.

I know that waveforms do not tell the whole story but that's good to see. Sure it looks busy but it also looks like there's some headroom.

Like I said, I've not heard the CD at all so I was just throwing it out there to see if anyone who has had any opinions.

It's very easy to get obsessed with numbers and perfection and so on, but it's not really very useful. I'm a lot more pragmatic now than I used to be. Speak in Rounds is the 'rockiest' track on Shields, and if it gets up to peak without shaving edges off during the rockiest bit, then so be it.

God knows what Dr Loudness War's stats actually mean, but putting them together like that is like comparing a Ferrari to a Golf to a Transit van based purely on size of engine and BHP, without looking at them or test driving them or considering what they're actually for.

Hidden by TNP gets a shite rating on there - http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=14461

Appears that it was sympathetically mastered. Found this illuminating and in depth article with the mastering engineer.

http://www.sonicscoop.com/2012/09/13/behind-the-release-grizzly-bear-shields/

While I’m glad that people are paying more attention to things like dynamic range nowadays I am increasingly getting frustrated at people yelling “brickwalled” at anything with a busy waveform rather than, as Nick points out, trusting your ears in the first instance. The stuff I heard about the ‘Shields’ CD originated on an audiophile forum and often they are the worst for judging sonics primarily on, often arbitrary, numbers.

Ha, Plumb by Field Music, which has a note in the sleeve about lack of DRC in mastering, gets a rubbish rating: http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=18328

Rock albums are by their nature not that dynamic - rock's meant to be loud and exciting, it's not classical music or jazz.

lol @ The Drift only scoring in 'transition'. http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=21912

I do disagree that the dynamic range database is a total waste of time mind you. While it's not the be all and end of an albums fidelity it is one amongst many ways (specral analysis, waveforms etc) of trying to quantify the quality of an audio recording. One of the major reasons I buy new vinyl is because often a seperate (hopefully high resolution) master is used. Loads of modern CD's seem sadly to be made for the car/to be ripped to mp3 and as such get over compressed and limited.

Also, I agree on the point about rock being meant to be loud. With that in mind those TNP and Field Music LP's look ok.

This is as bad as to be expected however.

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=7123

That mixing interview is great.

Desire from Spirit of Eden only gets a red 8, but it's also the track with the fucking huge awesome overwhelming thunderstorm of drums.

http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=7452

To be honest the SACD and recent vinyl remaster, as well as the original 1988 CD issue all sound better to my ears than that remaster of Spirit of Eden. That database seems to highlight that as well.

I've only ever heard the 97 CD. I'm happy with it!

THis is interesting - http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=10694 - because I know from someone in the band that this vinyl release was a needle-drop from the CD master and they were fucking furious.

The 97 CD was my first copy and the one I grew to love but you should really check out the high Rez or original CD as well.

Needledrop or CD masters being used for records should be a crime.

Cosmogramma... http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=5448

Ouch.

Going back to something I mentioned yesterday, Newport HMV must have heard my silent cry and I now have "Veckatimest" - plus "Soon over Babaluma" in the '2 for £10' offer. Hurrah.

Regarding SoE, I have the 97 CD and was happy with it until I picked up a recent TT best of for £3, mainly for "John Cope", and the remastering on "Wealth" and the single edit of "I believe in you" sounded so good and so much better. If I see the new remaster of SoE at a decent price I'll pick it up.

"Shields" doesn't sound brickwalled to me, and it's your ears that decide whether it sounds good at the end of the day.

Love John Cope.

wtf album sounds fine and is perfectly dynamic, what is this, the steve hoffman board?

Nah, it wasn't on the Hoffman board. Those guy's are crazy.

It was on a private torrent tracker.

I was a big fan of these guys but here my problem is that what you guys are saying is absolutely true, but I don't hear much else going on. It's all lovely to the ear and dynamic in its way but for me it seems to just float around on that plateau of loveliness-in-variation without much else to distinguish it song by song. Listening to it, quite intently, for I think the third time, at one point I accidentally skipped to another track and couldn't for the life of me work out which one I'd just been listening to. I'm sure there are good counterarguments and I'm sure it's my fault but I'M COMPLAINING ANYWAY.

Took me several listens to star pulling the songs apart, definitely. Half a dozen at least.

My only negative point of the album would be The Hunt, or maybe the fact that is placed in the middle of the album.

merdeyeux I felt that way after the first few listens. I still kind of feel that way about the last album, actually. but this one really came together to me.

posted an as-far-as-i-know mostly-unreleased old Grizzly Bear song on stg this week:
http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/unpredicting.php

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/grizzly-bear-shields-round-42-nicks-choice/

i have been totally emerging myself into this album. listening to it on head phones and loving all those little parts. it no way can compare to Veckatimest as that album has better songs. this album, however, is a pleasure and i'm glad i bought it.

http://www.stereogum.com/1166392/debating-the-grizzly-bear-ny-mag-story-and-making-a-living-making-music/top-stories/lead-story

Doug is the frontman of Brooklyn-based experimental metal band Pyrrhon, about whom Decibel Magazine said, “Outré as they get, everything Pyrrhon do emanates from an obsidian death metal core — just that this music is that much more expressive, its impact that much more disquieting than almost anything else in the genre.”

Doug Moore: The New York Mag piece on Grizzly Bear makes me feel lucky to be a member of a generation of musicians who never expected to be able to quit their day jobs.

ah fuck meant to post that in other thread

http://www.youtube.com/liveatthehouse

Edward Droste @edwarddroste
#tbt to when we were on the cover of NY mag and they made it look like we were broke and complaining. Good times.

Edward Droste @edwarddroste
That article really pulled the rug out from under us! We were led to believe it was essentially a history of us....lol! Nope!

Judging by his instragram, Ed's doing alright.

good 2 know

How does Ed know Megan Amram? Seems like they're always hanging out and tweeting at each other.