Bear vs. Shark "Right now, you're in the best of hands. And if something isn't quite right, your doctor will know in a hurry." CD
[Equal Vision]
Hello, ridiculously long album title! I don't know what the hell that's all about. Musically this is somewhat frantic indie rock with incredible drumming, but other than that I'm not too into a lot of it. It's your usual mix of smooth clean passages and more aggressive distorted runs, but they definitely have their own unique sound. A big part of that is due to the vocals, which are deep singing, but the guy's voice is totally individual. Now, that could be a good thing or a bad thing, but in this case, it does take me awhile to adjust to his voice. Some of his vocal patterns are fucking great, using really fast and fucked up arrangements, but his voice is deeper than usual, and something about that can rub me the wrong way. I guess it boils down to personal taste. I don't know... the rhythm section is great, and the drumming often just blows me away, but the songs are too bland to make an impression on me. They have their moments, but after 40 minutes I'm not really struck by anything as a whole. The softer singing and bluesy guitar tone during the first half of "Kylie" is great, especially because the drums are given a lot of space to resonate, and the bass just throbs away in the distance. And the guitar/vocal "MPS" is good as well, mainly because it stands out by being so relaxed. The recording is pretty sweet, though. The percussion sounds stellar, the bass tone is super thick and holds down the center, the guitars are clear, and the vocals fall right into the music where they should. I don't have any complaints. The packaging is printed on matte paper and all of the artwork consists of simple line drawings and bright colors that sort of make them look like little kids' drawings, even though they're likely not. Ironically I really hate their choice for the front cover, especially when some of the inner illustrations are much more visually interesting by comparison. I do enjoy some of the lyrics, though. Just something about the way they're put together seems to work. "Think ahead my lungs leapt in my throat to choke and move the lever now my hands are shaking and my eyes are shaking set up, A single camera a speckled line to defend the time when you were singled out to die just like the Romans it's spread out over one thousand nautical miles there's a crack in the window and a crack in your life..." I could see this band doing great things, but I'm not sure if they'll ever win me over 100%. The math rock-ish vibe they've got going on rhythmically is superb, I just think the guitar parts and actual song structures tend to be snoozers. (5/10)
Running time - 40:41, Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: Kylie, MPS]
Equal Vision Records - http://www.equalvision.com

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