#31 on the 2009 Musical Advent Calendar

Grizzly Bear is one of those bands that astounds the people who don’t consider themselves music nerds. They are completely unlike anything you’ll ever hear in modern Rock & Roll. You’ll hear a glimmer of the Beach Boys or some other psychedelia, but for the most part they are wholly their own. Veckatimest is their third full-length album, but it is not their best. Their previous album, Yellow House, (also the first album where the band all performed together) would have landed much higher on the 2006 Musical Advent Calendar, had I created one.

Their videos are always quite bizarre, but the fact that they still produce videos at all is something to be applauded. It just doesn’t happen as much anymore in our post-MTV-plays-actual-music-videos era. The song above, “Two Weeks,” is quite good. You can download another song, Cheerleader, from this album for free directly from the Grizzly Bear website.