In Ear Park

Department of Eagles have the kind of convoluted, meandering backstory that could squash a less compelling band. Before he joined Grizzly Bear in 2004, Daniel Rossen was splicing together samples and bits of unearthed sound with his NYU roommate, Fred Nicolaus; the duo's collages were released, in 2003, as Department of Eagles' eerie, twittering debut, The Cold Nose. That record was followed, in 2006, by a remix album and preceded by a series of vinyl-only singles, under the name Whitey and the Moon UK (also the original title of The Cold Nose). Not long after its release, Rossen partnered with Ed Droste and Grizzly Bear and the Department of Eagles project was put on hiatus-- until late 2007, when the DOE duo, now enlisting contributions from Rossen's Grizzly Bear brethren Chris Bear and Chris Taylor, began recording again.

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