After concluding their biggest tour ever in 2014 behind their fourth album Shields, the band was exhausted physically and creatively. As vocalist and guitarist Daniel Rossen puts it, “We all needed a bit of a break. Something happened in that touring cycle where it started to become too much of a grind and the magic was sucked out of it”.
For Rossen, who also performs under his own name and as Department of Eagles, the break was a chance to reconnect with his art. “I felt like I needed some distance from the music industry, to find a way to enjoy playing music again. I took a few years to enjoy playing in different ways and different contexts to find a place where it feels good again”.
The rest of the band kept busy in their own ways. Bassist and producer Chris Taylor produced records for a slew of musicians, and drummer Chris Bear toured with other bands and worked on soundtracks. Successful solo careers and burnout from the road made Grizzly Bear’s fourth album, Painted Ruins, far from inevitable. “It wasn’t totally clear that we were ready to [play again]. We crept back into it pretty slowly. Often in the past, we would throw a bunch of more fully formed songs right away from different corners of the band, but this time around we tried to leave everything open ended for longer.”
This led to an album that Rossen says is much more collaborative than their previous work. “We wanted to hopefully move towards a more shared aesthetic. We tried different combinations; Ed was writing with Chris Taylor and I was writing with Chris Bear. We found more common ground and brought everyone in a bit more”. For Rossen, this new approach was also a way of avoiding old patterns. “I was reluctant to get back into it in the way I have in the past. I’m not really a great bandleader. I can be too nitpicky or difficult, and I get very frustrated if it’s not going where I want it to go. I can just be a pain in the ass”.
Rossen says it took a while for him to feel comfortable fully involving himself. “I quickly realised I was stopping up the gears too much and trying to make it something it wasn’t. Ultimately, while our situation switched up again, it’s still what it was, and I’m happy I loosened back up again and made a go of it. I wanted to see if we could find a way to sound not entirely like our band without veering away to the point that it sounded strange”.
Painted Ruins more than fills that brief. When asked to describe the album, Rossen is at a loss. “When you work on a record so hard, it’s hard to hear it for what it is.” He pauses, and adds, “It does sound pretty full on, though”.
Full on is putting it mildly. Painted Ruins is an enveloping experience, adding a rich third dimension to the Grizzly Bear sound. From the crackling electronics of the lead single Mourning Sound to the trip-hop groove of Wasted Acres, the album sounds like a band pressing against its edges.
“Doing songs with an acoustic bent just wasn’t that interesting this time around. There were years of doing that stuff and it was an interesting challenge to make a record that doesn’t use any of that”.
After all the doubt he brought into the recording process, Rossen sounds genuinely enthusiastic about touring again. “We start playing in the next couple of weeks and I’m excited about it.” He adds that the band hopes to return to Australia early next year.
Is he worried about how the world will receive the new album? “I think I’m too old to really care about that too much” he laughs. “As long as we’re progressing and trying to do something new with each other, I’m happy. I do think it will be received differently. It sounds different and the writing process was different. It’s a different band”.
