Yellow House

Today's Music of the Day is Grizzly Bear's Yellow House. Finally, finally, finally, I have been able to listen to this entire album, after having enjoyed "On a Neck, On a Spit" for some time now. (This came to be via BetterPropaganda, which I have touted enough over the years as it is.) Anyway, I recently got my act together and downloaded this album.

Yellow House is something of a challenging but rewarding listen. There are vocals, but they serve the same purpose as the sound of rain or a howling wind, here; the album is mostly dominated by the sounds of strings and keys. The instrumentation isn't so intricate that keeping up is difficult, but it definitely requires some attention on the part of the listener. Yellow House is full of tracks that create an eerie mood, one that calls to mind images of dead trees and gravel roads somewhere just far enough from civilization to be uncomfortable.

There are several good tracks here: the strings of "On a Neck, On a Spit", the surprisingly engaging vocals of "Knife", the banjo-driven "Reprise". The closer, "Colorado", is something of a drone, but it winds down the album nicely, particularly in its last quarter. There aren't anthems to be found, but it's hard to ignore the designs of the album, unless the mood just can't be overlooked. (It's definitely not a sunny-day album.) It's easy to see where other artists (DM Stith, for one) were influenced by this album, but more than that, it's easy to see why.

In Short: Yellow House is a thing of beauty, and while not an easy listen, it is something I neglected for too long.

In Other News:
Where is my lunch?

The weekend was great, even if I didn't quite know what to do with myself for Monday evening. Work is making me pissy today but I will maintain my composure.

Grizzly Bear's drummer is named "Chris Bear". I'm not quite sure what to think of this, but it seems a little too 1980's-action-cartoon-team for me.