Shields

Grizzly Bear | Format: Vinyl

Product Details

• Vinyl (September 18, 2012)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Warp Records
• ASIN: B008966SI0
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,792 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

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

Editorial Reviews

Shields, the fourth and most fluid album by Grizzly Bear to date, will be released on Sept. 18, 2012. The quartet of Chris Bear, Ed Droste, Daniel Rossen and Chris Taylor have never made a quick follow-up; it took them three years to get from Horn of Plenty to Yellow House, three more to get from Yellow House to Veckatimest. Between those records, though, they'd not only toured (headlining as well as with the likes of Radiohead, Feist, Wilco, TV on the Radio and more), but issued singles and splits, EPs, remixes and solo projects. The potential energy gathered in tour vans and busses, in studios and on stages for years was finally released, giving the individual band's pieces the chance to recover and, after a year, return to being Grizzly Bear, and delivering their best album yet. ''This has a different energy behind it,'' concludes Ed Droste. ''Veckatimest was a little more of a polite album; the desire to keep the vocals smooth might have kept a little distance between us and the audience. This one feels a bit more rough and exposed, so that on Shields, everything speaks for itself.''

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Excellent Album by Grizzly Bear September 18, 2012

By T. A. Daniel TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Audio CD

2009's VECKATIMEST is a fantastic album, and it ranks among one of the best albums recorded in the past ten years. Grizzly Bear's second studio album is as finely crafted and poured over as anything available on the indie-rock market. Maybe it's the album's attention to detail; maybe it's the sincerity the band expressed through the lyrics; maybe it's the melodies and soaring harmonies; whatever it is, VECKATIMEST is undoubtedly a hard album to follow up. If you haven't heard the album yet, you really owe it to yourself to stop reading now and check out this previous album. Aside from it being a completely refreshing listen, this album will inform much of the band's fourth full-length album SHIELDS.

After touring for VECKATIMEST, Grizzly Bear took a 3-year hiatus from making music together to explore their own divergent musical tastes. While SHIELDS is definitely a Grizzly Bear record, it uses a much more varied and scattered approach than the intricate VECKATIMEST. There are moments on SHIELDS that reach out into unexplored territory for the band: psychedelic rock, atmospheric minimalism, and synthesizers. If their previous album was a meticulous exercise in tightly-wound control, this album is a more instinctual and gritty affair.

The opening track, "Sleeping Ute," makes no attempt to hide the band's less-polished features. The guitar riff that carries the song is a bit jarring: using a non-standard time signature, it sounds good but feels disorienting. The same frenetic acoustics of "Southern Point" appear on SHIELDS' second track, "Speaking in Rounds." Things take a turn for the poppier with "Yet Again," and "A Simple Answer;" the latter song begins not unlike another well-crafted pop tune, but by the 4-minute mark, the song is completely ditched for a new direction. The remaining two minutes of this song, after abandoning the pop-tune melody, the song changes considerably to a more downbeat, moody course. Between these two songs, the minimalist "The Hunt" wouldn't sound out of place on a Radiohead record (particuarly on IN RAINBOWS); it's sparse instrumentation (and inclusion of clarinet?) make this song excellent. The brief interlude "Adelma" is a subterranean and submerged atmospheric exercise - it's a completely unexpected moment on SHIELDS, and one that I wouldn't have predicted for Grizzly Bear. The same eerie minimalism is repeated in the outro of the excellent "What's Wrong." There's a groove on "gun-shy" that Grizzly Bear haven't quite experimented with yet - it's a smoky and sexy tone, and it slowly comes together to form one of the more accessible tracks on the record. The album ends with "Sun in Your Eyes," a song that isn't scared to let a few notes of silence ring out -- these moments of silence aren't annoying or jarring, they come at just the right moment, making the song a wistful, quietly beautiful piece. The ending, complete with harmonies, pounding organs, and distorted bass finds the band ripping loose for the album's finale.

Make no mistake, SHIELDS is a great record, but it doesn't have the same "mainstream appeal" that VECKATIMEST had - there's no potential crossover hits like "While You Wait for the Others" or "Two Weeks." Instead, this album is chock full of great songs that work best in the cohesion of the album's entirety. For this reason, this record might be a little less friendly to new listeners (not that that is necessarily a bad thing). I would recommend listeners who have not listened to Grizzly Bear to start with their third album before moving onto this one: VECKATIMEST is a much more accessible and immediate album than SHIELDS, thanks to the support of the aforementioned singles and less scattered direction.

What I like about all of this is that this album doesn't try to one-up the previous record. Instead, the band tried to do something a bit different - much of what made VECKATIMEST great is represented here, but there's enough changed and tinkered with that this album is hard to draw complete comparisons to. This album is a must-listen for fans of Grizzly Bear, and it's a more-than-worthy addition to a band with an extraordinary (but young) catalog. Essential tracks to sample/download: "Sleeping Ute," "A Simple Answer," and "gun-shy."

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything I ever wanted September 18, 2012

By Hwags

Format:Audio CD

This newest entry is a definite jem in the The grizzly bear Catalog. Listening to it one gets that real sense of emotional adventure and longing that we have all come to know and love in Grizzly Bears music. From start to finish this Piece of art keeps the listener fully entertained. The Variety of sounds and textures weave in and out throughout the album, bouncing back and forth between loud cacophonous jams and minimalist breakdowns. Everything on Shields seems very formulaic and structured and this really helps the album. Many people are saying this album is the best of both worlds from their past two albums: "Yellow house" and "Veckatimest". This to a certain degree is correct however I think that Shields spends more time breaking new ground then just reproducing the past. In Many ways this is this may be the best album to come out this year and I look forward to continued listenings.

It's worth noting that with any great piece of art it takes multiple viewings to fully understand all the complexities in this album.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars a good album that I can't connect with September 18, 2012

By videogamer

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

They say that honesty is the best policy. As someone who *loved* 2009's Veckatimest and *loved* the two pre-release singles off this album, admitting that I don't love this record as much as I thought (hoped) I would is a tough pill to swallow. I've listened to this album a lot since it's leak. On the surface, there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn't absolutely love it. Sonically this is a fantastic record, flawless even. But while Veckatimest was similarly meticulously crafted, it had soul. It was an emmotional experience, one I could connect with. I'm sure a lot of listeners will feel the opposite. Maybe it's just me. Every indie fan knows those old timey Radiohead fans who insist The Bends and Ok Computer are still their best records. (they've since been topped by Kid A and In Rainbows, fyi) Maybe that's who I am in the Grizzly Bear universe, that old fan who can't let go of the old records. But what can I say; those older albums connect with me, and this new one doesn't. If you're enjoying the album, keep enjoying it; don't let other people's opinions cloud your own. This is just one opinion, from one fan to another.

7/10
Key tracks: Sleeping Ute (one of the best openers I've ever heard, in fact), Yet Again, The Hunt