Our picks from the new albums that drop Tuesday at your friendly neighborhood record shop make the kindest sounds, and then, the cruelest:
Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest (Warp)
In advance of Grizzly Bear's latest, the New Yorker wisely spent its Pop Music feature on the Brooklyn band. "When all four band members harmonize," writes Sasha Frere-Jones, "Grizzly Bear sounds like a boys' choir." The writer then uses the band's appeal as a vehicle to explain the trend Fleet Foxes and St. Vincent have nursed -- a return to churchy American choral arrangements with a bonus of shimmering production to serve the layered vocal parts. Veckatimest purports to fill out the indie-pop ambassadors' old skeletal style, which is sort of bittersweet for those of us who can't stomach another "White Winter Hymnal" this soon. But we'll surely check it out.
The Paper Chase: Someday This Could All Be Yours [Part 1] (Kill Rock Stars)
How does John Congleton have time for his own music? The Dallas producer's credits seem to multiply like rabbits. We can think of two artists waiting on much-anticipated records Congleton had a hand in: Sarah Jaffe and Sleep Whale. But art-rock-horror- band The Paper Chase managed to make a new record and put it out internationally on Kill Rock Stars for far-flung fans. "What Should We Do With Your Body" is posted on the band's myspace for a sample of the new material; here's Dallas Observer critic Jesse Hughey's take on the album. And below is the video for "Said the Spider to the Fly," a Paper Chase manifesto for the uninitiated.
