Chris Taylor, lord of thine Rickenbacker
Grizzly Bear
Commodore Ballroom
May 26 2009
Grizzly Bear: "can't you feel the knife?"
Try to imagine the cool hipness of the early Walkmen sound, combined with the ethereal sounds and lyrical verbosity of Broken Social Scene, finishing with the power to hypnotize. The Brooklyn-based quartet consisting of singer Ed Droste, the aptly-named drummer Christopher Bear, guitarist Daniel Rossen and the versatile woodwind/bassist Chris Taylor released their third album, Veckatimest on the night of the show. As you could imagine, their sound has evolved tremendously. Their debut Horn of Plenty, had their trademark layering of sounds, but only showed their atmospheric-building talents at their infancy. Since 2004, their power of transcendence has matured in all the best ways, as one can tell in songs such as “The Knife.”
Veckatimest takes these powers to capture psychedelic bliss, but with a slight acoustic roughness and a touch of heartfelt nostalgia for a warmer generation.