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Nov 30, 2012It's the construction of it all that's so perfect: that the music can follow, this time, but still be what Grizzly Bear are all about.
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Oct 19, 2012Shields not only matches its predecessor in Grizzly Bear's back catalogue, but it exceeds it.
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Sep 18, 2012On 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.
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Sep 17, 2012While there's no question that Grizzly Bear's last two records have sounded gorgeous, critics of the band have wondered if that's enough. Shields, the band's fourth and most compositionally adventurous record, should put those concerns to bed.
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Nov 19, 2012Although Veckatimest might be more of an emotionally-driven album, Shields continues to showcase a band that is somehow--as good as they currently are--simply getting better and better, regardless of the location, the circumstances, regardless of the schedules.
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Sep 21, 2012Shields growls and purrs in ways Grizzly Bear has never before.
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Sep 19, 2012[Shields is] an album that unveils deeper levels of emotional impact and aesthetic dimension for a band that continues to challenge and captivate in ways that are entirely their own.
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Sep 17, 2012Shields is full of both genuine surprises and moments of transcendent beauty.
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Sep 14, 2012For how uncharacteristic it might seem for a band whose greatest gift, all along, was nuance, this louder take suits the band brilliantly.
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Sep 19, 2012On Shields, they achieve a fluid synthesis: Rossen and Droste still share vocal duties, but they often tag-team the same track, trading off lines and writing melodies for one another's voices. Their styles coalesce so smoothly, it's often difficult to tell where one singer-songwriter starts and the other ends.
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Sep 18, 2012Here, the band has returned from the cold with a tight, extraordinary album that is lush and satisfying--yet still in the corners just a little bit sad.
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Under The RadarSep 13, 2012The album is filled with wonderful little moments that add up to create a remarkable whole. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.111]
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Sep 18, 2012Though at time reaching heavenly heights, Shields is, as the name suggests, a heavy, protected album, stuffy with an ennui particular to the young and gifted. It's evidence that Grizzly Bear may be one of the great bands of their generation--if only they'd smile a little more.
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MagnetOct 17, 2012An organic expression of the beauty that can be found in the fragile, arbitrary nature of communication. [No. 92, p.52]
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Oct 2, 2012Shields pushes and prods at musical boundaries in a similar way to Talk Talk's 1986 masterpiece, The Colour of Spring.
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Sep 19, 2012[A] beautiful if vague fourth studio album.
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MojoSep 19, 2012This brilliant, complex and surprising piece proves to be no exercise in getting to know them better. [Oct 2012, p.82]
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Sep 18, 2012Grizzly Bear has learned not to stress over its craft, and Shields feels all the more fresh as a result.
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Sep 18, 2012With Shields, they still sound like Radiohead at a Buddhist retreat, but the songs are more muscular, increasingly driven by drummer Christopher Bear's innate swing.
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Sep 17, 2012While it's not as obviously big a statement as Veckatimest was, Shields is plenty ambitious in its own right, and its complexity demands and rewards patient listening.
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Sep 14, 2012Shields is an engrossing, beautiful work which could only come from Grizzly Bear, and only at this point in their career.
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UncutSep 14, 2012If their painstaking studiocraft has in the past seemed over-refined or even fussy, here they've discovered a new wildness, a liberating sense of drama. [Oct 2012, p.70]
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Sep 14, 2012It's a warm-blooded record, beholden to analogue gear and flawless mastering--one destined to fit snugly on a turntable rather than to live as ones and zeros on your iPod.
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Sep 14, 2012The record overflows with the tell-tale nuances of a band who have learnt how to translate grandiosity into something more restrained, yet no less forceful.
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Q MagazineSep 13, 2012Shields is part spiralling indie rock, part wistful '60s pop. [Oct 2012, p.102]
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Sep 13, 2012It sounds as if Grizzly Bear have spent their time away digging out the emotions that sometimes get buried beneath the technical fireworks. Speak in Rounds builds to a climax that – to use a phrase not much associated with Grizzly Bear – rocks, and furthermore rocks in a viscerally thrilling manner.
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Oct 25, 2012More than anything, Shields feels like a deliberate maturation of Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, trading adolescent angst for an older disillusion and heartbreak. The same tension exists between the two, especially in swelling closers "Half Gate" and "Sun in Your Eyes," yet here, they're more intricately expressed and controlled.
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Sep 17, 2012Shields is both well-mannered and demanding, subdued but always bubbling under the surface.
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Sep 17, 2012Conservative, instead, describes Shields: Veckatimest authorized it to be far bolder. You yearn for what could've been.
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Sep 24, 2012Shields is undeniably tuneful, and you could even say that it's the perfect record to build that swelling momentum, but it's also detached and emotionally destitute.
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Sep 19, 2012This is still a Grizzly Bear record, but thanks to a spin through the grinder of maturity, it's also now a Grizzly Bear that know when to hold back or let things flow in order to create an LP that connects emotionally. This was the one thing that its impressive but more technically minded predecessors often lacked.
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Sep 17, 2012For all the strange twists and turns, the rich layers and dark beauty to be found, nothing here grabs you and sets up home in your heart like 'Veckatimest' did.
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Sep 20, 2012Shields is not going to grab you, but it rewards patience.
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Sep 18, 2012It's a shame to find Grizzly Bear spinning their wheels.
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Sep 17, 2012It's more likely, though, that Shields is a grower.
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Sep 14, 2012Pretty but formless, Shields plays like a calculated retreat into something altogether indistinct and inconsequential.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 150 out of 165
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Mixed: 11 out of 165
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Negative: 4 out of 165
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Dec 31, 2012
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Oct 28, 2012
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Sep 19, 2012