LHB’s Shorties (Grizzly Bear, Art Brut, and More)

Pitchfork gives the new Grizzly Bear album, Veckatimest, a 9.0.

Yeah, Veckatimest sounds worked-over, but in the best of ways; carefully embellished, stripped bare when applicable, full of the joy of sounds colliding with other sounds. Grizzly Bear was once Ed Droste's band, but no longer; it's a family affair, and only four guys so completely serious about music-making could come together to make an album this labor-intensive sound so airy, so natural.

The 12-track album is on sale at Amazon MP3 for $3.99.

Drowned in Sound also reviews the album.

The whole thing is, at times, a little like being trapped inside a ‘real world’ version of Secret Of Mana (if you’re too young to know what a SNES was, lookie here) – all shimmers and sweeps alongside percussion that never unnecessarily intrudes, ethereality expressed via studied execution.

DOA also reviews the album.

Time Out Dubai interviews Art Brut frontman Eddie Argos.

PopMatters reposts a 2006 interview with the recently departed Jay Bennett.

Drowned in Sound interviews former Grandaddy frontman Jason Lytle about his solo career.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune profiles a 12 year-old music blogger.

Field Middle School student Max Timander, 12, has taken blogging's egalitarian spirit to a new height, despite his lack thereof. He runs areyourockin.com, a reviewer-centric rock blog covering a smart mix of hot albums (the new Green Day "is so addicting," he says) and "retro" discs -- by early-'00s acts such as the White Stripes and David Gray.

- David Gutowski