Yellow House is a beautiful album in its own right, and required listening not just for fans of Horn of Plenty, but for anyone who enjoys ambitious, creative music with an emotional undercurrent.
It flourishes with the warm psychedelic rays that penetrate its forest canopy; sometimes charged and almost always sentimentally musty. Like a home ripe with the memories of a hundred lives, Yellow House is constantly seeping with new confessions from all of its sun touched walls.
The album as a whole is one complex, yet simple and effective work. It may seem repetitive or boring, but if you take time to travel through from start to finish, it is that perfect “mood” album.
Beyond production, Grizzly Bear have stepped up their songwriting in every way, assembling melodies that proceed in a logical fashion but never sound overused or overly familiar.
The melodies are entrancing, made even more intriguing by their submergence within the reverb, together resulting in an album whose scope and sound are impossible to ignore.
Grizzly Bear are an Animal Collective that decided to go more intelligible and accessible instead of running naked through the woods on five hits of sunshine acid while screaming in tongues.
This is a big album: big-hearted, epic in scope and ambition, emotionally all-encompassing and yet somehow personal and quietly moving.
Chilled out, stirring, challenging and eclectic: Grizzly Bear are not inhibited by genre and neither should their listeners be.
Yellow House isn't an album to dip into; instead you dive in and sink to the bottom, at once drenched in emotion and uplifted.
The group, now a quartet, get more expansive - and more pop - on their second album, even making space for multitracked Beach Boys harmonies.
#8 | / | Pitchfork |
#9 | / | Cokemachineglow |
#79 | / | Paste |