LOVE IT ON TUESDAY: GRIZZLY BEAR

I interviewed Danish band Efterklang about a month ago. Between many interesting things, we talked about Grizzly Bear, cause Efterklang’s label, Rumraket, was responsible for the European release of their debut album in 2004. Efterklang must think it’s very weird that the band they signed as unknowns 5 years ago are now a thousand times more famous than they themselves are. It took 5 years - 3 LPs and 1 EP - for Grizzly Bear to fully develop their sound, but now they got it perfectly and, seriously, listening to Two Weeks, the first single of their new LP Veckatimest, is a shivering experience. Efterklang must seriously try to figure out what they did wrong.

The thing is that Efterklang craft excellent songs too, but their sound is not original enough. I don’t mean to say that a song is better if it’s original. I think that when you listen to a certain song, if it’s good, it’s good, and that’s all it needs. But from the strict point of view of popular success, originality comes as a very important thing. Cause if two bands sound the same, the best of the two will sell everything and the other will sell almost nothing. Efterklang are excellent, but Sigur Ros are better, so they’re the ones who sell a lot. Grizzly Bear are also excellent, and why are they fucking big now? Cause, like Sigur Ros, they’re the best at what they do… and with Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear are actually the best in general.

To be honest, there ain’t a single song that’s not at least good on Vecka – I’m getting familiar with it already. I’ll just shoot the utterly perfect ones, cause otherwise it would be too long. There’s the folky and intense opener Southern Point, the immediately catchy Two Weeks, the cool and relax Cheerleader, the Pitchfork-gave-me-a-perfect-note-on-best-new-tracks While You Wait For The Others and the most perfect closer ever Foreground. But even if it's got some higher points, that's the kind of album that you listen from start to end, again and again and again. I used to think Merriweather Post Pavilion was well in advance in the run for best album of the year, but I have now to say that Veckatimest caught it back.