Album Of The Week: Grizzly Bear Shields

It's not to say that the Album Of The Week selection for this second week of September has always been a foregone conclusion. This slate on September 18th is actually full of great efforts by a broad set ofworthy artists, all situated in the upper echelon of their respective niches -- see the laptop-enabled R&B redux of How To Dress Well's Total Loss, the tenth set from evergreen fuzzbox titans Dinosaur Jr and their I Bet On Sky, and the Killers' bold and artful widescreen mainstream American rock record Battle Born. But while it is worth noting that Grizzly Bear is sort of the hometeam around here, it's also equally important to note that being the hometeam in a town that's quick to spot slippage is unenviable. On some other week, or on this one with a weaker showing from Grizzly Bear, those aforementioned records could easily have won this slot; as you all well know from our Comment Party last week, though, there's only room for one record today. Shields is officially out now, and Grizzly Bear's fourth full-length is in a league with this year's finest. 2012 isn't done so we'll shelve the AOTY talk, aside from stipulating that the shortlist just got one entry longer. Instead let's focus on the myriad mechanics that make this the case.

As both an art piece and a product, Shields is masterfully executed. There was the roll-out, which conformed expectations around the progged-out and knotty "Sleeping Ute" before drizzling the album's most honeyed Droste-pop moment "Yet Again," both of which helped calibrate the record's polarities. Then there's the tracklist's twin pop-pillars in the aforementioned "Yet Again" coupled with Dan Rossen's own ace turn in the propulsive, instantly memorable, sure-to-be-a-single "A Simple Answer," important check boxes analogous to Veckatimest's supreme entry points "Two Weeks" and "While You Wait For The Others." In fact, that's a lesson and a blueprint wisely learned by the success of Veckatimest: make sure your pair of celebrated songwriters each have their immediately alluring pop gem, because it makes promotion easier.