Grizzly Bear's New Song, 'Four Cypresses,' Is A Foreboding Look At A World In Chaos

Grizzly Bear's latest single from the band's upcoming album, Painted Ruins, "Four Cypresses," opens with a simple electronic pulse, like a musical heart monitor for a dying patient. It's soon offset by the barest drum beat before slowly blooming into a dreamy wash of vocals and synths. It's a simmering, moody reflection on the state of a displaced world, where "it's chaos, but it works."

"Instead of moving you stared into the wall," sings Daniel Rossen in a lyric video for "Four Cypresses," set against series of old, strangely unsettling VHS home movies. "Tangled up in a pile, it's early / Make no sound living in a pile."

This is the third track Grizzly Bear has shared from Painted Ruins. It previously released "Mourning Sound" and "Three Rings." This is the first new music from the Brooklyn band since releasing the group's much-celebrated album, Shields in 2012.

Painted Ruins is due out Aug. 18 on RCA records.

Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.