And what was there / The perfect glare / We all fall through.
—“while you wait for the others”, grizzly bear
my roommate and i disagree on where grizzly bear sits on the fundamental, terribly-reductionistic, completely-sophomoric-musical-criticism uplifting/depressing scale. my roommate firmly believes grizzly bear speaks to something melancholic, tragic. and tragic these lyrics are, not to mention angry and fierce and bitter. they are wrung out of something deep within this droste-rossen-taylor-bear power quadrumvirate. but what they are doing with the music here is shouting it. it’s played on a pinnacle looking over a grand canyon. it’s cathartic, it’s sunny, it’s loud, it’s fast. it throws around words like “forgiveness” and “pretentions” with complete sincerity. grizzly bear is nothing if not sincere, vulnerable, fragile, beautiful. as it stands in its album veckatimest it is the climax. the remaining two songs—“i live with you” and “foreground”—are the panting sighs of their instruments, exhausted, smoking a cigarette, burping, holding us, and we are not alone, we are not alone, we are not alone.