Track Review: Grizzly Bear, Iron & Wine, Twilight Sad

May 18, 2009

MP3 Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks

This song (and the rest of Grizzly Bear’s fantastic Veckatimest) leaked a couple months ago and the track was around a while before that in live form from the band’s performance on Letterman, so while the song has just been officially released within the last week it already feels like a tried and true classic. It certainly will go down as one of the best songs of 2009. The song is absolutely lovely in every way, the vocal harmonies are a revelation and the keyboard line that plays throughout is a complete breath of fresh air. If you had a hard time getting into the band’s debut album Yellow House, as I did, this is the perfect entry point to the band.  A song that’s wonderfully accessible as well as vivid, dynamic, and strikingly expressive.

MP3 Iron & Wine – Belated Promise Ring

This gem was originally released as a Japanese-only bonus track on Our Endless Numbered Days, and is being featured on Iron & Wine’s new comp. Around The Well. The song differs from the majority of its original album in that it includes additional instrumentation (drums, bass, piano) from Sam Beam’s vocals and acoustic guitar, and in that way it fits very nicely with his most recent output.  The song is beautiful, thoughtful, melodic, all the things that you would expect from Iron & Wine and it doesn’t lose any of his intimacy that made Our Endless Numbered Days so captivating.

MP3 The Twilight Sad – Reflection Of The Television

On The Twilight Sad’s new single, the band continues to pound out a militaristic beat on the drums, mumble lyrics in a heavy Scottish accent, and play their guitars really loud and turn the feedback up. Of course, this is why we fell for them in the first place and we wouldn’t expect any less. The band’s sophomore album is titled Forget The Night Ahead and if this song is any indication it will be something to look forward to.

Posted by Taylor in Track Review