Grizzly Bear - Yellow House

With the recent release of Grizzly Bear's fantastic album, Veckatimest, I decided to go back and give Yellow House a proper listen. With this being the second album I have been listening to of late that regards empty and haunted houses, I feel like I'm getting a pretty good understanding of what the listener is supposed to feel upon hearing this album.

Personally, I don't imagine haunted houses to be yellow, seems too cheerful. Unless it's sort of like the faded sepia-tone of times past, which I must say is more accurate based on the sound of this album. The one most prevalent flaw of this album is that I have to be in a certain mood to listen to it. Being outside or in the sun is just a no-no. This is very much an album to play alone in a dark house.

What Grizzly Bear does right: they make beautiful sounds and nice vocal harmonies and such.

What Grizzly Bear does that I am not particularly fond of: insert dissonant phrases( I don't know if that is the right way to describe it but you know what I mean.) into their otherwise beautiful songs. I don't really understand this, but I suppose some people must. The best example of this I can think of off hand is the chin up/cheer up part in "Lullabye". The problem is that when I think about this album, these parts make me dread listening to that specific song, making it hard to really love this album as a whole.

Besides all of that, there are some great tracks here, "Knife" being the most obviously and most immediately likeable. The second half of "On A Neck, On A Spit" is hoppin, and "Colorado" brings the album to a dark but pretty close.

Favorite Tracks: Knife, Colorado, Central And Remote

My Rating: 6/10

-M



Tracklisting:
1. Easier
2. Lullabye
3. Knife
4. Central And Remote
5. Little Brother
6. Plans
7. Marla
8. On A Neck, On A Spit
9. Reprise
10. Colorado

link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?j2c9ehzjojx