Volcano The Bear — Amidst the noise and Twigs
They’ve trimmed back on the more freaky and longer tenderises of their material giving 9 shots of tuneful, odd, creepy and downright bizarre shots of Bear magic. With most of tracks hitting around the 6 to 2 minute mark they present an idea and vibe, but never over play or milk it too much,making each track it’s own strange reality or scene. To me this feels less like an album where a vibe is stayed with through out, theses are 9 very distinctive audio snapshot shuffled into a rewarding and clever manner.
With before we came to this religion they show them selfs as strange pop song writers as they aptly balance flute led eastern junk yard charms, beautiful multi harmonies, roving memorable bass and guitar lines, and bizzaro but foot tapping percussion and sound elements. Or showing off their more demented and brain frying qualities we have tracks like cassettes of Berlin which floods your brain with a strange soup of buzzing voice and twisting tape samples over a haunting struck drone tone which gives the feeling of reality slowly melting away around you and all you can do is smile delirious. On the last track the three twins they manage to mix their odd pop side with their more let-loose & crazy side. It all starts off with a strange sawing mix of violin tones and voices/ bent choir singing, then the tuneful piano march kicks in to which a sampled baby cry is added and more sawing violin, before the vocals come in sounding like a strange English take on Neil Young’s more felt but upbeat vocals.With the rest of the track balancing beautifully between beign tuneful/strangely poppy and absolute musically insanity- pulling it off brilliantly.
Another highly creative and rewarding chapter in the life of a band who really sounds like now one else out there, building in elements that are sure to attract new followers but still keeping true to their unhinged and devilish roots