Minus The Bear - Infinity Ovehead

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 13 / 9 / 2012

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Don’t you love it when you get the chance to hear a new album by a band you’ve heard about for a good few years, but have never really heard or taken the chance to listen to? NO. I don’t why more people didn’t tell me about how good Minus the Bear are They are amazing, vibrant, lively, the right side of catchy, and totally punk rock. Having built up a very well deserved fan base across the world since their beginnings in 2001 in their native Seattle, the band have consistently released records and toured and have evidently done this themselves. They are a truly independent act. Let this be a lesson to all you “indie” bands who release E’s every few years in the hope of getting signed and letting someone else foot the bill and do the ground work. The result speaks for itself. Minus the Bear sound like a band that have been playing together for eleven years yet there is a really fresh feel about them. Tunes like ‘Steel and Blood’ and ‘Toska’ are the sort of tunes that are just so damned good you almost don’t want anyone else to hear them so you can keep them all to yourself. There are subtle elements at play throughout the album and throughout the songs which are wonderfully used. There are some fantastic grooves in there which just knock you for six as you’re not expecting them, woven together with some equally fantastic and tight guitar playing. All this of course is back up perfectly with a perfect rhythm section who have the art of ‘less is more’ down to a tee. They are just streets ahead. Singer/guitarist Jake Sniders, to me at least, has at times an hint of Caleb Followill of Kings Of Leon. I suppose if you think of Kings Of Leon at their ‘dancey-est’ you’re part way there at times, or possibly as well of the Gaslight Anthem but without the obvious choruses. As the album goes on I find myself wanting to draw more comparisons, but never really quite feeling I can do them justice. ‘Empty Party Rooms’ and ‘Diamond Lightning’ are moments of sheer brilliance, but to be honest I could not find a track on here that isn’t a “stand-out” track amongst the ten tracks here. They have nailed the idea of having just the right amount as the quality doesn’t for one beat stop or get tired. And when you hit the penultimate ‘Lonely Gun’, you are just kicked in the face with another shock as by all accounts they seem to have kidnapped Daft Punk and thrown them in there somehow. Just amazing stuff from start to finish.

Track Listing:-

1 Steel and Blood
2 Lies and Eyes
3 Diamond Lightning
4 Toska
5 Listing
6 Heaven Is A Ghost Town
7 Empty Party Rooms
8 Zeros
9 Lonely Gun
10 Cold Company

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/minusthebear
http://minusthebear.com/
https://twitter.com/minusthebear

Label Links:-

http://www.bsmrocks.com/
http://bsmrocks.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/bsmrocks/
https://www.facebook.com/bigscarymonsters
http://bsmrocks.tumblr.com/

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