Grizzly Bear - Shields B-Sides (EP)

Some B-sides collections feel like a junk drawer. Shields B-Sides doesn’t. Issued by Warp in 2013 as a companion to Grizzly Bear’s 2012 album Shields, it plays like a second room in the same house, lit from a different angle. You get outtakes, demos, and alternate versions that trace the band’s meticulous wiring, and a few songs that stand up as stone-cold keepers in their own right. Most folks first heard “Will Calls” when the band rolled it out ahead of the release. It landed like an anchor dropping, heavy and certain, with a low-end thrum and a chorus that blooms in that unmistakable Grizzly Bear way. The B-Sides set folds that song into a small but revealing portrait of how the group was piecing together Shields, voice by voice and guitar by guitar.

The four-way chemistry is still the story. Ed Droste’s soft-focus lead gives the music its ache, Daniel Rossen’s chords twist and resolve like puzzles, Chris Taylor’s production instincts make room for breath and shadow, and Christopher Bear’s drumming keeps everything elastic and alive. You hear that in “Listen and Wait,” a track that might have been too delicate for the final Shields sequence but feels essential here. It’s quiet, sure, yet there’s a tug underneath that brings to mind the band’s Yellow House-era patience, only now with the confidence they earned on Veckatimest and Shields. The harmonies are patient and human. No tricks, just four musicians leaving space for each other.

“Will Calls” stays the headline, and it deserves the spotlight. Even in demo form, the song carries a sense of motion that turns into lift. The chorus doesn’t explode so much as it gathers, cresting on a shared pulse from bass and drums that gives Droste and Rossen room to soar. You can hear why it became a fan favorite almost instantly. It is rare to get a late add that feels like it could have been a centerpiece, but this one hits that mark. It also underlines how Grizzly Bear’s studio process encourages happy accidents. The B-Sides package includes glimpses of those first-draft moments that later got refined, and that peek backstage is part of the appeal.

There is atmosphere to spare here. Even the slighter cuts carry field-recording detail, close-mic’d strings, and those round, woody percussion sounds the band loves. Nothing is tossed off. Grizzly Bear always sounded like a group that respects acoustics as much as melody, and Shields B-Sides confirms it. You can follow the air around the instruments, the slow crest of reverb against a plucked line, the way a backing vocal wanders in and out like a memory. If you live for that kind of craft, this is candy.

On vinyl, the material breathes. The dynamics and low-end warmth do favors for “Will Calls” in particular, but the quieter tracks also bloom with a little extra headroom. If you collect Grizzly Bear vinyl, or you’re trying to fill in the gap between Shields and the later Painted Ruins, this one feels necessary. I’ve seen copies filed beside the main record in more than one Melbourne record store, and it makes sense. Flip on a listening station and the sequencing tells its own story. For crate diggers hunting Shields B-Sides vinyl or anyone looking to buy Grizzly Bear records online, it’s one of those companion releases that turns into repeat play rather than a single spin and shelve.

Historically, it marks an interesting midpoint. Shields arrived to broad critical praise, and the band toured hard behind it, but these songs suggest how wide the sessions really were. You hear threads that pull toward Rossen’s solo writing and others that echo the hushed drama Droste carries so naturally. None of it feels like a footnote. It feels like the connective tissue that explains why Shields lands as gracefully as it does. That makes this small collection more than a bonus disc. It is a map.

If you are deep into Grizzly Bear albums on vinyl, you know the drill. This band rewards dedicated listening. The joy here is in hearing the blueprint along with the building, and realizing the blueprint is beautiful too. For anyone browsing a wall of new arrivals or scrolling through a shop that ships vinyl records Australia wide, don’t skip it because it says B-Sides. Shields B-Sides holds its own, and it might even send you back to the main album with fresh ears, which is what the best archival releases do.