ARTIST: Grizzly Bear
ALBUM:Veckatimest
SOUNDS LIKE: Music to sip NyQuil with indie rock chicks to
FUN FACT: "Veckatimest" is an uninhabited island off Cape Cod in Massachusetts. It's also an anagram for "Smack Eve Tit." Ride or die fey folkies!
WHY COMPLEX IS CO-SIGNING IT: Certainly not for the band's name (seriously, a moratorium on indie rock band names involving animals, please). On the reals though, summer's here and while the typical warm month soundtrack involves joints you can blast at cookouts, etc., every once in a while you need to go home, draw the curtains, and mellow the eff out, and Veckatimest is just the record to do that to.
A quartet out of Brooklyn, Grizzly Bear's managed to fly their chamber pop freak flag high without going totally saccharine (we see you, Vampire Weekend). Their first real group record, Yellow House, was a meticulously-crafted, mostly acoustic pop album that was imperfect in all the right places, and Veckatimest picks up where its predecessor left off.
From the meandering, jazzy opener "Southern Point," through the slightly sunnier "Two Weeks" to the almost rave-up "While You Wait For the Others," Veckatimest never gets much hotter than a slow burn, but while it's definitely languid, it's never lazy. The instrumentation is daring in its diversity, but never ostentatious, and just when the multi-part harmonies feel like they're about to get a little too easy, they veer off to a template that sounds completely new. Throw this on the hi-fi when it's time to get out of the sun for a little bit; and if you're feeling creative, try to give them a new band name.
KEY TRACKS (LISTEN):
"Two Weeks"