“I’m an anxious person, and plants calm me,” he says.
Visible behind them even over Skype is a mirror reflecting on the living room, which has a black-and-white baby photo of Droste and a wire stand for his fern, peace lily, philodendron, and more. Droste, bearded and wearing a blue-and-white striped T-shirt, and Taylor, in a lighter blue tee and with his blond hair combed from the side, are huddled together in front of an iPad perched on a pile of books. This brotherly interaction is happening at Droste’s home in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, where it’s a sunny spring day. “Come on! Snap out of it!” mimics Droste, as Taylor laughs along. And we’re the better for it.Ed Droste is reaching over to grab Chris Taylor by the shoulder, imitating his Grizzly Bear bandmate’s motivational role behind their upcoming fifth album, Painted Ruins. They sound like a band that loves what they do. They don’t sound like an art rock project or an indie rock string quartet. No longer do they sound meticulous and carefully planned.
#GRIZZLY BEAR SHIELDS T SHIRT WINDOWS#
Opening the windows and letting some fresh air and perspective within the Grizzly Bear band dynamic has opened them up to new possibilities. Droste sounds like he’s pulling these songs from his heart, not his head. ‘Yet Again’ has the emotional heft we’ve grown to love about a Grizzly Bear song, except with more of a heart-on-his-sleeve honesty in Droste’s voice.
#GRIZZLY BEAR SHIELDS T SHIRT FULL#
He’s taking full advantage of the fact that he’s got an amazing band to fill out his quiet pop songs. He needn’t compose with the idea that these songs are being written for just his ears. It feels as if Droste has decided to not be so serious and enjoy the fact that he actually has a ‘band’ now. ‘Gun-Shy’ is a breezy, head swaying pop song. Ed Droste sings us some great songs within this great album. Rossen isn’t the only one to undo the top button on his neatly pressed shirt and loosen his tie. It’s such a carefree song that you almost forget who you’re listening to. A driving tom-filled beat, with Rossen singing “Those saints in Lockstead/Across the wasteland/Forever gone/They’re home and walk along”, you get a bit of story telling in this very pop-inflected song. ‘A Simple Answer’ is another track that you would’ve never heard on a Grizzly Bear album up to this point. It’s a song that looks at you eye-to-eye, never looking off to the side. It reminds me of CSNY’s ‘Wooden Ships’ but leaner and more direct. This song grooves and breathes like no other Grizzly Bear song up to this point.
It has the smell of old leather and the cold sea air. Folksy and musty, this song gives off the feel of history. ‘Sleeping Ute’ opens the album with a wild, drunken sway. With Shields, Grizzly Bear’s fourth full-length, they have made their most open, loose and absolute best album to date. Well, the overly shy and introverted Grizzly Bear is no more.
You felt that there was something more they wanted to say, but out of embarrassment or fear of sharing too much and scaring us away they cut their message short and clammed up just when they were getting to the point. It’s just that in the past the guys in Grizzly Bear, while making very emotional and powerful music, had a tendency to keep the listener at arms length.
It’s like the Brodsky Quartet scoring an Ingmar Bergman film. They create mood, emotion(in a truncated way) and an atmosphere of grandiosity within their chamber pop songs. Listen, I’m not putting down Grizzly Bear because the fact of the matter is that I love Grizzly Bear. Go back and listen to Yellow House and Veckatimest and tell me with a straight face that those two albums are rock albums. I use the term ‘rock band’ very loosely as well. Grizzly Bear have made a reputation for themselves as being a precise, meticulous and at times very uptight and stuffy rock band.
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