Department of Eagles - In Ear Park

On Department of Eagles’ 4AD debut there’s a lingering sadness glimpsed in the fatigued pleas of ‘Phantom Other’ and in the wistful resignation of album-closer ‘Balmy Night’, as Grizzly Bear Daniel Rossen sings ‘my father told me never to run’. The album is dedicated to Rossen’s father, and there is evidently some mourning work done here, but never does it fully-emerge or indulge itself. In Ear Park is a soft-footed slow-burner, eleven assured musical arrangements that have brought Rossen and songwriting partner Fred Nicolaus comparisons to Van Dyke Parks.