I have always had a great deal of respect for musicians who treat the live versions of their songs with a different perspective than the recorded. It is so easy (and unfortunately common) for bands/musicians to simply play a song like it's recorded, or record a song like it's played that there is a lot of possibility for variation that is lost. Adept reinterpretation of songs changes my estimation of a band, as is the case with Grizzly Bear. About a year or so ago, I came upon a video on YouTube of Grizzly Bear playing their song "Shift" in a bathroom in someone's apartment in Paris. Using only acoustic guitar, melodica and their four voices, they radically reinterpreted a song that had been more akin to laptop-pop on their first album "Horn of Plenty" into a stark and dazzling ballad. Guitarist/vocalist Daniel Rossen and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor joined the band after "Horn of Plenty" and they bring enormous amounts of talent to the group, augmenting the already impressive songwriting of Ed Droste and Christopher Bear. This was evidenced on Grizzly Bear's second album "Yellow House" and perhaps even more drastically in the live context, where Grizzly Bear have become a dynamic band, transforming bedroom pop songs into ornate anthems.
Half of the "Friend" EP captures some of that live exploration, although it does not actually contain any live tracks. Rather, it showcases recordings of alternate versions of three songs from their first two records (including a slightly modified version of "Shift" as I described). It also contains recorded versions of two songs they have been playing live: a sweet Rossen solo folk song "Deep Blue Sea," as well as their cover of the 50s tune "He Hit Me." The latter might be the Rosetta stone of the whole EP. "He Hit Me" has perplexing, if not troubling, lyrics such "When I told him I had been untrue, he hit me and it felt like a kiss… And I knew that he loved me." However, it has such a fragile and angelic melodic, sung here with graceful gender ambiguity by Droste, that it actually sounds like a love song. Grizzly Bear also show off their tight transitions from soft to muscular with their soaring riff-centric chorus on the tune. "Little Brother," which was one of the standout tracks from their second album, gets reinterpreted into a sparser sing-along as it has been played in live settings. And there is also a short treat at the very end of the disc: a frenetic surf guitar/mariachi horn whirlwind unlike anything else in the band's discography.
The other half of "Friend" are covers of recent Grizzly Bear songs by other bands. It is a bit strange to me that they are included on a Grizzly Bear disc since it seems rather uncommon for a band to release covers of their own songs by other bands. The covers themselves stay with the spirit of the songs but depart radically from the original sound. CSS records a bubblegum synth-pop version of "Knife" that crystallizes the pop structure in the song. It is a surprisingly strong track for something that sounds on paper like a potentially disastrous idea. Atlas Sound (Bradford from Deerhunter) also covers "Knife" in a very different way, more avant-noise, though still emphasizing the sounds integral melody. Band of Horses cover the originally baroque "Plans" with banjo and harmony vocals like a back-country hoedown. Sometimes, when bands try to record in a specific genre, it sounds like a joke, but Band of Horses seem so at home in the musical vernacular of country, that the songs is a joy (though I don't know how fans of Band of Horses' first album will receive the song). "Friend" is a strange creature due to 50/50 split of reinventions and externals covers. It sounds in many ways like a disc for hardcore fans of the band, yet it would be a pleasing listen to newcomers as well. It may not be the most representative picture of Grizzly Bear, but it does show that the band writes excellent songs that are malleable to different shapes by different hands, yet always retain their core of expert tunefulness.
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