Band: Bear
Release Title: Noumenon (Album)
Release Date: 07/10/2013
‘Boxer‘ kicks off proceedings in an almost ambient fashion, laced with weird, discordant notes before bawling into an absolute ball of fucked up fury. A kind of mathy metal/hardcore vibe is so prominent as ‘Mirror‘ comes in, dick-measuring with the likes of Dillinger Escape Plan and the very early work of Mastodon, drunk at a birthday party or something equally weird.
‘Rain‘, staggered, stop-starting is something that only some bands can pull of without sounding as though they’re well, just shit. Bear do it, and they do it pretty fucking well before ‘The Ending Line‘ comes in to upset your parents and their friends alike. ‘Noumenon‘ is definitely the kind of shit you don’t want to introduce to those who aren’t familiar with that kind of ‘mathy’ tech metal/hardcore, they’d be sure to give that funny one-liner, ‘Is the CD broken?‘. Hur, hur, hur.
Banging through tracks like ‘Mantis‘ and the unforgiving ‘Centerfold‘, we arrive at the frantically crushing ‘The Human Thing‘, enough for you to gurn your face off at and wonder why you can’t play like Bear can, I guess there are a few answers to that question, the two most common being that you’re probably shit and they’re probably on drugs. Who knows, but either way, it’s fucking mental!
The chunky fucker that is ‘L.A. Layer‘ leads us nicely and jaggedly into the concluder ‘Postbreaks‘, a light-hearted, jaunty end to this record…who am I kidding?
No bullshit, this band will end up as the band that you’ll always claim you ‘heard first’ before the coolest of kids start turning up at their shows in flocks. Pick up ‘Noumenon‘, you won’t be left bereft.
8/10
Reviewer: Luke Davis
