It's possible these greater levels of democracy have muddied Grizzly Bear's immediacy. Droste has written melodies for Rossen and vice versa both Chrises (Taylor and Bear) have expanded their already considerable remit. The band have stressed the collaborative nature of Shields, the first Grizzly album not to be named for a specific time and place (unless, of course, there's some studio in South Shields they are keeping mum about). ThereВ are quiet passages in What's Wrong, where the singing dies away, allowingВ rumbling drums and tinging cymbal and mournful horns to reverberate elegantly. Those who have stuck around since 2006's Yellow House, or even before, when Grizzly Bear was just Edward Droste in his bedroom, will likely findВ lusher pastures here. Two songs further in, the surprise duet Gun-Shy sounds rather a lot like the electronic soft rock of Metronomy В it's an unexpected tangent, even from a band who take tuition from masters as diverse as Radiohead and Van Dyke Parks. The galumph of A Simple Answer takes a moment or two to settle in the ear, and then off it soars. Shields' charms don't always float as easily on the breeze. But for all its unimpeachable loveliness, it's not quite the new fan magnet that Veckatimest's standouts were. At least one particularly forthcoming track вЂ“ Yet Again вЂ“ has been released prior to the album. Those who came to Grizzly Bear through pastoral, Fleet Foxy moments such as Two Weeks from Veckatimest may find Shields harder to penetrate.

At once roomy and ultra-saturated with sound, Sleeping Ute is no lullaby either at one point it sounds like Grizzly Bear are upending a billiard table and throwing it down the stairs. As ever, Grizzly Bear remain the most welcoming listen of the three, despite being the group most shaped by jazz.You can really hear the jazz from the off, as Daniel Rossen вЂ“ one of Grizzly Bear's pair of chief songwriters вЂ“ weighs in with the tremendous three-legged folk shuffle of Sleeping Ute (say it out loud). Animal Collective have gone one rawer with their very recent Centipede Hz while the Dirty Projectors album, Swing Lo Magellan, disappeared into a particularly bloody-minded sector of left-field. Cumulatively this was the annus mirabilis of what we might call Pitchfork pop, after the taste-making website вЂ“ a questing, mature vein of post-collegiate music that owed something to folk and found itself on nodding terms with the avant garde but sold plenty of copies too.ДЇast-forward three years. These previously ornery little outfits suddenly became the bands du jour. Animal Collective issued the shamanic Merriweather Post Pavilion, the eclectic Dirty Projectors released their Bitte Orca, and Grizzly Bear completed their journey from loose-ranging, lo-fi experimentalists to chamber pop phenomenon with the lovely Veckatimest. Three groups released landmark records marking high points in their careers.

But in recherchГ© rock circles, 2009 will long be recalled as a hell of a year for the Brooklyn art-house band. I n pop, the year 2009 will be mostly remembered for the death of Michael Jackson.

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