Grizzly Bear - Yellow House

Yellow House is the second studio album by American indie folk band Grizzly Bear, originally released in September 2006 via Warp Records.

With Yellow House Grizzly Bear take a dramatic leap forward, delivering a collection of songs that sound awe-inspiringly huge and intimate at the same time.

While the album is overall more polished and focused than their debut, nowhere is this (literally) clearer than in the production.

Though the artful lo-fi approach Grizzly Bear used on Horn Of Plenty was extremely evocative in its own way, Yellow House's warmth, clarity, and symphonic depth gives Grizzly Bear's widescreen psychedelic folk-rock a timelessness that makes it seem even more dreamlike and unique.

The album's structure and songwriting are much more focused too. Instead of presenting their experiments as fragments and snippets, as they did on Horn Of Plenty, on Yellow House Grizzly Bear incorporates their ideas into pieces with natural, suite-like movements. "Central And Remote" for example moves seamlessly from fragile marimba melodies to acoustic guitar-driven verses and towering choruses.

The best moments not only have a natural sound, but conjure up nature imagery as well: "Easier" opens the album with a gently exciting build-up of woodwinds, banjo, and acoustic guitar that could soundtrack the dawn of a late summer morning, while "Colorado" closes Yellow House with wide expanses of vocal harmonies and mountainous tympani.

In between, there's more majestic beauty to be found, particularly on the gorgeously hazy love song "Knife", which combines lush harmonies with a little bit of chugging cool.

Yellow House is a beautiful album and required listening not just for fans of Horn of Plenty, but for anyone who enjoys ambitious, creative music with an emotional undercurrent.

This double album 2LP record set is a 15^th Anniversary limited edition on clear coloured vinyl housed in a single pocket sleeve with printed inner sleeves, pressed in the UK via Warp Records.