Tracks
Grizzly Bear: "On A Neck, On A Spit"
(2006)
By Conrad Amenta | 28 January 2008
I’m no longer myself. I’m supposed to be too cynical to enjoy folk-influenced earnestness, even folk of the freak variety. I’m supposed to pshaw and condescend at gallantly plucked acoustics, honey-dripped sentiments like “all my time / I’ll spend it with you, now.” I’m supposed to point knowingly at ominous news stories and romanticize the frigid detachedness of electronic music and alternate personas as more authentic to the times. But instead Grizzly Bear have me endlessly extolling, gushing embarrassingly about Yellow House to anyone who’ll listen: interrupting conversations between strangers, shushing friends during first single “On a Neck, On a Spit’s” climactic, glorious elegiac climax, responding to equally earnest enquiries with quotes from the song’s elegant refrain. Yes, all my time I will spend with you, now.
Though looking for modern comparisons, I’m still led to the doorsteps of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass by the song’s warm production values, its contrast between spare solo acoustic guitar and towering, wall-of-sound melodies. The simple profundity and sincerity of the ‘spiritual one’ seems to speak through these four Brooklynites, and though I don’t know if this comparison is more hippy or hipster I don’t even care. (Like I said, I’m no longer myself.) In a lesser band’s hands, the all-pervasive cult of melody evinced here might have been mismanaged or bled of all its character with studio gimmickry, but even once you remove yourself from the song’s graceful, two-part transition, its natural, effortless polyphonies, it still transcends. Because of “On a Neck, On a Spit,” for the first time in a couple of years I’ll dust off a neglected acoustic guitar and try to learn the song. I’ll write poetry for my loved ones. I put change in a Unicef box and ruffle a child’s hair. Grizzly Bear, yer fucking killing me here.
Though looking for modern comparisons, I’m still led to the doorsteps of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass by the song’s warm production values, its contrast between spare solo acoustic guitar and towering, wall-of-sound melodies. The simple profundity and sincerity of the ‘spiritual one’ seems to speak through these four Brooklynites, and though I don’t know if this comparison is more hippy or hipster I don’t even care. (Like I said, I’m no longer myself.) In a lesser band’s hands, the all-pervasive cult of melody evinced here might have been mismanaged or bled of all its character with studio gimmickry, but even once you remove yourself from the song’s graceful, two-part transition, its natural, effortless polyphonies, it still transcends. Because of “On a Neck, On a Spit,” for the first time in a couple of years I’ll dust off a neglected acoustic guitar and try to learn the song. I’ll write poetry for my loved ones. I put change in a Unicef box and ruffle a child’s hair. Grizzly Bear, yer fucking killing me here.