Performer Notes

During the five years between Shields and Painted Ruins, the lives of Grizzly Bear's members changed, thanks to marriage, children, and divorce. So did the way many listeners consume music, thanks to the advent of streaming music services and other advances. So if the band's meditative fifth album feels a little out of time, it's in a good way; Painted Ruins sounds timeless rather than tied to any particular moment. Even its structure suggests an old-school album, beginning with the somber prologue "Wasted Acres," which offers a welcome return to the band's postmodern chamber pop even as it mentions a Honda TRX 250 all-terrain-vehicle, and closes with the sweeping, brass-driven melancholy of "Sky Took Hold." In between, the band revisits their music from new perspectives, making slight tweaks but remaining unmistakably Grizzly Bear. "Aquarian" and "Cut-out" borrow some of Shields' insularity as they ponder life's unanswerable questions, while the gorgeous harmonies and harpsichord on "Neighbors" hark back to Yellow House. Elsewhere, the band expands on Veckatimest's poignant pop with "Losing All Sense," which is cut from the same cloth as "Two Weeks," and "Mourning Sound," where the upfront rhythm section gives a deceptive bounce to lyrics like "This isn't a place where I can even try." Throughout Painted Ruins, the beautiful arrangements reflect -- and invite -- contemplation as they carry the songs' ambiguous themes and lyrics, which balance cryptic introspection with flashes of clarity. Grizzly Bear channels the chaos and turbulence of the 2010s more subtly than some of their contemporaries, imbuing it with political and personal depth on songs like "Four Cypresses," which creates a tension between its fluid strings and martial beats that's all the more intriguing because it isn't obvious. And when Ed Droste tells a lover who's on the way out "Don't you be so easy" on "Three Rings," it might as well be the album's manifesto. Occasionally, Painted Ruins' drifting meditations border on meandering, but its open-ended beauty is well worth the close listening it takes for the album to fully reveal itself. ~ Heather Phares

Professional Reviews

Rolling Stone - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "The sound is still ornate -- on 'Glass Hillside,' nylon-string embroidery melts into gilded choirs, with oddball melodies recalling Brit proggers Soft Machine."

Spin - "Throughout the record, words are just pathways through which the melody travels from one sweep to the next..."

Uncut - "[S]tealthy chamber-pop, meticulously pieced together by Messrs Droste, Rossen, Taylor and Bear, where the songs accumulated emotional heft with each listen."

Magnet - "The album is full of anxiety and tension, stocked with woozy melodies that float atop precise rhythms and dramatically calibrated guitars; it foregrounds its attention to detail."

Mojo (Publisher) (p.90) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he elements of PAINTED RUINS suggest that nature is the best solace in crazy times."

Paste (magazine) - "Throughout 11 melancholy tracks, one can feel the end of the world looming. While some of the songs focus on basic tasks or chores, they seem to exist as a way to contend with the disarray of society, almost like meditations."

Clash (Magazine) - "Sinister shades of raw complexity tour the Brooklynites' fifth effort, from the slow crawl of `Wasted Acres' to the glassy elegance of `Three Rings'..."

Album: Painted Ruins [LP] *
#	Song Title		Time
	Disc 1
1)	Wasted Acres	More Info...
2)	Mourning Sound	More Info...
3)	Four Cypresses	More Info...
4)	Three Rings	More Info...
5)	Losing All Sense	More Info...
6)	Aquarian	More Info...
7)	Cut-out	More Info...
8)	Glass Hillside	More Info...
9)	Neighbors	More Info...
10)	Systole	More Info...
11)	Sky Took Hold	More Info...

Album: Painted Ruins [LP] *
#	Song Title		Time
	Disc 1
1)	Wasted Acres	More Info...
2)	Mourning Sound	More Info...
3)	Four Cypresses	More Info...
4)	Three Rings	More Info...
5)	Losing All Sense	More Info...
6)	Aquarian	More Info...
7)	Cut-out	More Info...
8)	Glass Hillside	More Info...
9)	Neighbors	More Info...
10)	Systole	More Info...
11)	Sky Took Hold	More Info...