7. Grizzly Bear - FriendShamefully left of my best-of-2006 list with their superlative “Yellow House” album, the Grizzlies unyielding “Knife” finally slashed its way to the heart of my iTunes this year. This EP shows the strides the Brooklyn band has made musically since their bearded, fragile campfire days when I first saw them, opening for Sufjan Stevens at a Katrina benefit. Now sonically at cruising altitude, the songs reinvented here, or covered, as in the case of Phil Spector’s horrific girl-group ballad “He Hit Me (But It Felt Like a Kiss),” masterfully change gears emotionally and musically. The band’s tonal range is especially strong in the vocal harmonies that make Grizzly Bear the tightest band in the country. Though it’s only represented on this collection by three covers, “Knife” with its “Stand By Me” backing, sinister lyrics and soaring vocals (here in an even boppier live version from February 2007) is unquestionably the best song of 2006 (damn!).
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