- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: Bear Hands
Album: Burning Bush Summer Club
Label: Cantora
Playtime: 34:03 min
Genre: Indie
URL:
Rip date: 2011-01-12
Street date: 2011-11-02
Size: 45.14 MB
Type: Normal
Quality: 175 kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
Does Wesleyan, the arty Connecticut liberal arts university, attract boys
with raw, nasal voices and penchants for shimmering keyboards and huge waves
of overdubbed psychedelic guitars to its halls, or does the school simply
turn its students into those sorts of musicians? Either way, it has quite a
track record of contributing to the Brooklyn music scene (see: MGMT, Amazing
Baby, and the other band of Das Racist's Victor Vazquez, Boy Crisis). And
now, following the success of MGMT, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden's
former classmates and opening act Bear Hands have thrown their hat into the
ring too, finally releasing their full-length debut three years after issuing
the Golden EP.
What sets Bear Hands apart from not only their former school friends but also
the rest of those outer-borough inhabitants enamored of reverb pedals,
ramshackle rhythms, and throbbing bass, is their quirky sense of humor.
Frontman Dylan Rau, who has both the unhinged bark of Isaac Brock and the
reedy, sinewy whine of MGMT's VanWyngarden, sings about eating cats or Julien
Donkey-Boy, the title character in Harmony Korine's bizarre Dogme 95 film.
And despite its markedly slower pace and haunting arrangement, "Wicksey
Boxing" has its own inherent wit, given that it takes its name from a
slurred-drunk pronunciation of "whiskey boxing," a sport best to avoid.
But amid such punning-- and other, more abstract lyrical turns-- Bear Hands
have a softer, more earnest side, too. On "Belongings", Rau sings, "At the
gentle age of nine, I bought my first 45/ And then I drink, yeah, I drink,
yeah... I smoke a little weed." It's a song that's suffused with the
excitement of first falling in love with music and a nostalgia for the
innocence and excitement of youth. If anything, though, it is Burning Bush
Supper Club's musically softer moments that are its weakest.
Bear Hands excel at crafting songs that chug manically under a cloud of
reverb or coax wallflowers out onto the dancefloor with an infectious
marriage of musical precision and experimental messiness. But after seven
straight tracks of upbeat psych-rock, "Wicksey Boxing" kicks off an
album-ending run of mostly plodding, mid-tempo tunes. Though Bear Hands get
the atmosphere right on these slower tracks, layering echoing effects over
sparse riffs, starburst synth crescendos, and Rau's most vulnerable warble,
these more muted, intimate songs feel lacking next to the passionate drive
and playful spirit of the rest of the album. Overall though, Burning Bush
Supper Club is the album Congratulations should have been: one that sharpens
the lush, hedonistic surrealism of reverb-laden psych-rock into tightly
focused anthems that are just anarchic enough as to be unpredictable.
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. Crime Pays ( 2:59)
02. Belongings ( 4:01)
03. What A Drag ( 3:02)
04. High Society ( 2:33)
05. Tablasaurus ( 3:13)
06. Julien ( 3:53)
07. Wicksey Boxing ( 4:01)
08. Blood and Treasure ( 2:20)
09. Can't Stick 'Em ( 3:24)
10. Camel Convention ( 3:08)
11. Tall Trees ( 1:29)
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