Grizzly Bear -
Veckatimest
This album experienced immense growth for me. I hadn't heard their previous work, but heard the single 'Two Weeks' a few times on the local indie station before the album came out, and it caught my attention. Upon listening to the entire album, I was bored to tears. No improvement on second listen...nothing stood out to me except the previously heard single. It's like they were asleep for the rest of the album. On the third listen, something happened. It was slight, but it was something. On the fourth, it was a completely unrecognizable album...I actually started to
love some of the songs. At this point I couldn't imagine how it sounded so boring and meaningless the first few times. Not that it was exciting and loud, mind you. The songs I love are subtle indeed...but incredible in their beauty. Sadly, a few of the songs still fail to rate any higher than 3/5 on my scale, but a good half of them are 5/5. The album basically became the soundtrack to my lonely summer 2009. Laying by the lake in the evenings watching the sun set, walking around the city, etc. It would have been easy to dismiss it after one listen but I'm glad I didn't.