Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (2009)

It's long been somewhere city dwellers go to clear their heads, which is presumably why the equally feted New Yorkers Grizzly Bear recorded much of 2006's second album Yellow House there, its delicate instrumentation and spectral harmonies captured in the dwelling of the title, borrowed from founder member Ed Droste's mum. Successor Veckatimest ramps up the regional romance by being named after an island off the coast, as well as opening with a line both enigmatic and evocative: "Our haven on the southern point is calling us".So far, so pastoral. Like Fleet Foxes, whose singer Robin Pecknold declared Veckatimest "the best record of the Noughties", the quartet are fond of the American outdoors, not to mention those musicians who have added to its mythology. The twin spirits of the Beach Boys and the Band, whose Music from Big Pink is also named after a coloured house in the country, roam throughout the album, partly recorded in Cape Cod but mostly put together in the Catskill mountains in upstate New York. Nevertheless, its intricate folk-pop, embellished by Nico Muhly's fantastical strings, is neither obvious nor derivative, with doo wop and neo-classical among its impressive jigsaw puzzle of influences. It's also more robust than its consumptive predecessor, the ornate detail underpinned by the twin guitars of Droste and fellow vocalist Daniel Rossen, which chug and flicker in the vein of a more contemporary art- rock benchmark: Radiohead.What began as a Droste solo project is blossoming with Rossen's increased influence. His songs are responsible for the dream-like nature of proceedings while the beefier Droste-led tunes add ballast.Veckatimest's only down side is a touch of preciousness, a need for refinement that, unchecked, might nudge Grizzly Bear towards the polite rather than imaginative. It's a small quibble. For now, this is almost perfect.
guardian.co.uk

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