Bear In Heaven
Time Is Over One Day Old
Dead Oceans

Brooklyn's Bear In Heaven is running wild on their fourth full length album, following Red Bloom of the Boom (2007), Beast Rest Forth Mouth, (2009), and I Love You, It's Cool (2012) - all tree out on the band's own Hometapes label. Bear In Heaven is lead by Jon Philpot (formerly part of a duo called Presocratics, along with Need Thomas Windham) on vocals, guitar and keyboards, and his bear-mates guitarist and bass-player Adam Wills and drummer Jason Nazary. A line of ex-bears has left the band, but Philpot's still on his mission merging electronic, psychedelic and kraut rock, with some dashes of gothic pop influences from the 1980s thrown in (they could've been a new wave band back in the early 80s). Or, as the band states their interests to be on their facebook site: 'Knowledge. Power. Humor. Rhythm'.

I'm not quite sure about whether I like this album or not. The record and the songs on it sounds dark, but the songs are not dark themselves. The band have said about the LP: 'This album isn't about being dark, it's about releasing darkness and frustration'. Time Is Over One Day Old is a collection of ten beating, pounding, synth driven tracks. It's holding repeating and repetitive rhythms and crispy grooves. And, yes, it's a catchy record, the songs are suggestive and somewhat hypnotizing as they spin on. The tracks swirl and curve and rotate as they find their way further on and on, or up and up. Or away, or beyond. One of the songs I really like is "Demon", which is a true spastic new-wave dance-splash. It's got this demonic drive in it. Cool. I also like the closing track, "You Don't Need The World". This isn't like what Animal Collective or Grizzly Bear are up to. This is a way different tribe. Different paws. Different path. With a different drum. Weird bears.

Well, Time Is Over One Day Old's score in total, then? Honestly, I'm fascinated of it and I'm attracted to it, but I'm not sold. Yet. Maybe soon. Like what their label Dead Oceans say about them: 'When bands age well, their vitality takes shape'. I'll let this album age and ripe some more. To fall into shape. Getting better.

Copyright © 2014 Håvard Oppøyen