GRIZZLY BEAR
Horn of Plenty (Kanine Records)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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As a devout fan of little e-projects, hatched in secret, those basement tapes and self proclaimed world beating concept albums recorded on 4-track, the presence of Grizzly Bear's album Horn of Plenty provides delightfully intimate access to one man's 15 month hibernation in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Musician and documentary filmmaker Edward Droste, with the help of Christopher Bear (irony noted) has mashed loose folk and psychedelia into an admirable debut album that would make Roky Erickson or Syd Barrett proud. It is a small album, lacking real deliberate crescendo, noodling between genres, painting a complex lyrical picture of life inside a cave.

Grizzly Bear is a duo, but the album sounds much denser, much more like an entire universe crashing noisily in on itself. No single song rings out as outstanding as they're almost unrecognizable as songs; rather the album's continuity and self-assured in its freakish orientation speaks enough.

© 2004 - Erick Mertz