GRIZZLEY BEAR: VECKATIMIST

Have you ever heard so much about a band that your excitement to hear them is almost overwhelming? That’s what Grizzly Bear was for me; a band I had been told were so great that I almost bought in before I even heard the album. They were electronica, they were pop, they had lush harmonies and incredibly interesting musical soundscapes. This was going to be the band that really opened my eyes to new ideas in music. The world was my oyster and Grizzly Bear would be the seasoning. Then I heard their new album “Veckatimist” and the the dream began to unravel.

This album should be called The Emperor’s New Clothes because behind all the hoopla is nothing but a stack of soulless and pretentious songs trying way to hard to be cool. This is music for people who don’t like music but like to analyze music. They stand around in parties with an air of superiority and talk about the nuanced idealism and subtly of band A-B-C. They don’t care about these bands they just want to make sure they’re heard discussing them. Grizzly Bear is the soundtrack to the lives of these people.

The major problem with Grizzly Bear and their album is a complete lack of focus. They don’t know what they want to be so they try to be everything and it fails miserably. Part of it is electronica, some of it is acoustic, then there’s pop and even a sad attempt at soul. Mix all of those pieces together in a batter of hipster disconnect and you’re left with the musical equivalent of an empty Christmas present.

What’s worse is that you can almost hear a voice behind the music making fun of you because you don’t “get it”. Veckatimist is a record that hides behind pomp and pretensions in hopes you won’t see that it really just sucks. Wow you guys kicked a track off with a weird electronica beat and then layered in some folk guitars and then some pop vocals. You added weird stops and starts; you decorated the basics of the songs with pretty bells and whistles. Doesn’t all of this make you really forward thinking? Oh, no, it makes you boring and incredibly hard to listen to.

There are some cool parts in the various songs on Veckatimist, which is about the only interesting thing you can do with the album. If you sit and listen to all eleven songs Grizzly Bear have to offer you can actually design maybe four really good ones from pieces and parts of the other tunes. Perhaps that was the point, maybe Grizzly Bear wanted you to realize how bad their album was and build your own. I’d love to believe this whole record was performance art meant to teach us something about drawing the good from the mediocre but alas I don’t think the old Grizzly Bear is capable of such things.

As for those who think this band and their album are some kind of beacon towards that which is new and exciting I don’t really know what to say. Try the Residents or The Gentlemen Losers or any number of bands that pull this combination of pop and experimentation off with much better results. Grizzly Bear is a band for those who don’t want to try and discover important music they just want to stand around and yap about it.