Album Review: Grizzly Bear - Painted Ruins

The idea of pop avant-gardists Grizzly Bear always made a great deal more sense than the reality. An indie group refracting Brian Wilson-style 1960s pop through a prism of artsy chamber rock sounded like exactly what the tired world of mid 2000s alternative music desperately required.

Alas, the band had a weakness for tinkering as the listener’s attention span wandered. Only with their sublime 2009 single ‘Two Weeks’ — the Beach Boy’s ‘Good Vibrations’ Vulcan minded-melded with a Tom Waits