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Mar 20, 2012 Daniel Rossen By John Everhart

“If I had a chance to see the friends I’ve loved and lost/And beg for their return,” an insidious line from the orchestrated waltz splendor “Silent Song,” is the key motif to unlocking Daniel
Rossen’s knockout punch of an EP Silent Hour / Golden Mile. The record seemed to emerge out of nowhere, stemming from Rossen’s desire to stave off ennui and hone his chops while
in the midst of a break from his main band Grizzly Bear’s upcoming LP. “Silent Song” is like a bridge to 2009’s Grizzly Bear album Veckatimest, where a similar aesthetic of love and loss
pervaded.

All of these tracks have footprints tracing from a Van Dyke Parks Song Cycle fever dream, but Rossen’s homespun ditties also evoke the damaged pathos of Syd Barrett’s The Madcap
Laughs and the braying prog of Radiohead’s “The Tourist.” But ultimately, they sound like Grizzly Bear numbers in miniature, which is a damn good thing. (www.warp.net/records/daniel-
rossen)

Author rating: 8/10