start writing songs together.' A couple of songs came that way, and that's why they're verse me, chorus Dan. [...] Suddenly the synergy hit, and the momentum struck, and then everyone got excited. And that's when the ball started to roll, and then we just started playing around, and people were much more open."" Ed Droste described Shields''' overall aesthetic as "very in-your-face", saying that "the drums and vocals are clearer and louder. It's not as dreamy and pastoral and sleepy as past efforts, and there's a lot of raw vocal takes, which is something we don't normally do." Rossen elaborated, "Previous records were definitely dreamier with lots of layered vocals and we've started paring those back and taking them away, taking them away. That's what we went for on this record: clearer performances and more direct arrangements." Talking about Chris Taylor's production, Rossen stated, "Part of his strength is that he pushes us. [...] He enables us to try stranger stuff; he pushes us to that side of ourselves. [...] He's always thinking of the whole palette, I feel, whereas Ed and I might be more worried about a melody or a lyric." The album was mixed by Michael Brauer. Writing and composition The songwriting process for Shields was more collaborative than on past releases, with vocalist Ed Droste noting, "As we get older, more confident, and more mature, we're becoming more comfortable with stepping on each other's toes." Pairs of band members did writing retreats with each other, with band members regularly building off of other members' ideas. Lyrically, Ed Droste described Shields as Grizzly Bear's "most verbose album" yet, noting, "It's funny, because I think back to a song like "Colorado", where I was basically singing ten words over and over again for five minutes straight – and that's it. There's nothing on this album like that. There's a lot more there, verbally, and it's definitely emotionally charged." Bassist and producer, Chris Taylor stated, "For this record, it was really important to us to try and make sure that lyrics had a weight to them and at least some sense of a narrative, even if it was loose. There were lyrics in previous albums that seemed to have no meaning whatsoever. And that always really annoyed me. We agreed it'd be really important and awesome if we could just try and make all the lyrics tell something.