Grizzly Bear Strike Gold With the Straightforward “Mourning Sound”
Grizzly Bear’s complex compositions ought to be esoteric, but they often resonate because they rarely indulge in abstraction—the kaleidoscope is always vivid with color. “Three Rings,” the first release from the band’s new album Painted Ruins, was was very much in that vein: a clap-and-stomp number that dilates into an arpeggiated, cosmic waltz. But Grizzly Bear’s proclivity for these sorts of arrangements does not mean that complexity is their lone trick. Their more accessible songs, where the instrumental threads are untangled and traceable, are also essential, a fact that anybody who’s heard Ed Droste scratch his doo-woop itch on “Knife” can attest to. This isn’t to argue that leaner…
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