Department of Eagles In Ear Park
Dan Rossen is one half of Grizzly Bear’s songwriting team; he’s the classical-minded experimentalist to […]
Dan Rossen is one half of Grizzly Bear’s songwriting team; he’s the classical-minded experimentalist to Ed Droste’s pop savant. In Department of Eagles, his project with Fred Nicolaus, Rossen eviscerates the Great American Songbook, rearranging sepia-toned tropes—barroom pianos, marching-band snares, Victrola waltzes—into supremely complex art songs. Lead-off single, “Nobody Does It Like,” sounds like a computer-generated Phil Spector production, with velvety oohs and ahhs woven around a high-stepping bass bounce. Aptly titled album closer, “Balmy Night,” meanwhile, is a banjo-and-guitar raga in the shape of a stately antebellum ballad. Needless to say, In Ear Park is the kind of release that becomes increasingly special with repeat listens.