Grizzly Bear - Shields

Drowned In Sound“A warm-blooded record...” 'It's very in-your-face' … 'you can hear the cracks and the moments where it's not perfect.' With that in mind, it's the understated confidence about Shields that will win it its admirers...

Time Out“Smooth, rolling, road trip music...” The deja vu moment is probably the result of Grizzly Bear's ability to capture the uncannily familiar in music. This album sounds like home. Not my home, necessarily, but an idea of home in the old fashioned American sense...

The Arts Desk“A terrific, dynamic album...” Leaves standing everything Grizzly Bear have done previously. Four albums in, the Brooklyn quartet move forward with their most focused, most cohesive album yet. The folk influence remains, as do traces of their love of The Beach Boys...

The A.V. Club“Delicate beauty and refined presentation still rule...” On an album that touches repeatedly on the barriers people build between each other, the members of Grizzly Bear have forged further ahead into sweet synchronicity...

Rolling Stone“The songs are more muscular...” The fussiest moments – the deconstructed orchestrations on "What's Wrong," the Broadway majesty of "Sun in Your Eyes" – are often the sweetest, and rock hugeness is merely one tool in their kit...

Pitchfork“Full of baroque, detail-rich production and latticework melodies...” The Brooklyn four-piece make pop music with an ear for the ambient, asking us to notice the importance in detail, the beauty of texture, and the foregrounds that exist all across our spectrum of perception...

NME“A bit more raw and exposed, and more upbeat too...” More moody and muscular, but it’s far from happy-go-lucky, as is clear from the first scratchy strum of ‘Sleeping Ute’ – a song Droste describes as “a restless wandering dream, almost like a nightmare…"

Guardian“A rich, dense weave of sound...” Whatever happens, they're certainly not having to struggle to appear as interesting as they did on arrival. If anything, they're getting more intriguing as they go on: an object lesson in the value of allowing things to progress at their own pace...

BBC“Confounding expectations with a rare imagination...” It’s an aesthetic rather than musical comparison, but–with songs shifting with casual precision, arrangements that are fluid and brave, and an honest, organic production–there’s a sense throughout that Grizzly Bear are on the cusp...

The Observer“Roomy and ultra-saturated with sound...” For all its unimpeachable loveliness, it's not quite the new fan magnet that Veckatimest's standouts were. Shields' charms don't always float as easily on the breeze. The galumph of A Simple Answer takes a moment or two to settle in the ear...