Shields is a good album. As a person who "likes but isn't the hugest fan of folk music" I would definitely say this is one of my favorite folk albums. Grizzly Bear always does a great job organizing their songs in albums and more importantly, does a great job mixing folk and psychedelia in their songs. The way I think of it is if you were to mesh Tame Impala with Fleet Foxes, you would get something like Grizzly Bear.
Overall I'd say Shields was a pretty successful album. The first two songs were great, especially the ending in "Speak in Rounds" when the horns came in. And there was the generic indie rock / indie folk songs too like "Yet Again" but that's fine! You need those every once in a while. I will admit though, not all the songs were great. Some seemed to drag on a bit but overall the album was great. One of my favorites was definitely "gun-shy". It's not as catchy of a song as "Yet Again" is but the beat and general feel to it is really nice.
