Review of Lost Bear at the LVC, 08 Jan 2010.
Ok, so it’s the 15 Jan 2010: a good day for work-shirking. I’ve got this squib (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squib_(linguistics)) to finish for today, which won’t happen. When about to tackle the real meat-and-two-veg of the whole thing, any avoidance tactic may be employed.
I saw Lost Bear at the LVC on 08 Jan 2010. Here’s my opinion of them. I can’t remember how tanked I was for this one. I assumed I’d put away a gallon or two though.
“Lost Bear and beer”
Equipment: Loadsa Dutch guys, squirming about the stage like big blonde liberal ants. Trumpeter, two guitarists, singer, bassist. Two drummers. The existence of the second, ‘auxiliary’ drummer was only made clear to me after the gig had finished. That I didn’t see him (or her), and most importantly didn’t HEAR him (or her), indicates to me his (or her) worth to the band. Negligible.
Sound: Cohesive. The lank-haired buoys on the sound-desk done good. The trumpeter was a clever addition. They played mid-tempo, mid-90s, mid-American Emo-Indie. On some of the more melancholy numbers they sounded like American Football, the one Emo band I like. The singer possesses one of those squeaky voices which warbles and struggles up and down scales in a way that says ‘I’m fragile’. Such a voice has the advantage of being instantly emotive, inviting, unthreatening and confessional; but it also has disadvantage of being unable convey any of the cool emotions like lust or anger. Consequentially the band will never sound like anything but a C.S. Lewis book: humourless and full of Christian guilt. To me it doesn’t matter what the lyrics are intended to convey, Lost Bear’s songs will always be about how depressing it is to be an underdog. That the vocal delivery makes lyric-deciphering impossible will not help change this impression. Another thing, Tom thought the singer sounds like the guy from Counting Crows. But I don’t think so particularly.
Songs: They have a knack for songwriting, I must admit it. They can shift between passages of loud and quiet seamlessly. More than anything that impressed me was their sense of dynamics. For example, they know how long to play an instrumental part before bringing in the hook. Although this sounds pretty basic, you’d be surprised how many bands are unable to get it right. Fortunately, Hyperbowl are not one of them. Not now we’ve got a Big Muff.
But every coin has two sides. With a fluid structure comes a lack of grounding. Where were these songs going? To where were they leading? Fuck knows. The band seemed to know, because after a while they’d get heavier and then stop.
Performance: Ok. They were pretty mobile considering they were playing to about 15 people. Nothing spectacular though. That they were on a stage four feet above the audience didn’t help. And the smoke-machine didn’t help tear down that barrier between band and audience either.
Overall: As I retired to the bar, my thoughts were thus:
“Yeah, they’re reet. Bit of a girlie affair. They play music dead well though – great musicianship.”
“Lost Bear and coffee”
Only 3 songs on the myspace, which is a shame. They are in the process of recording though, which should reconcile this problem. The intro of the first, which is entitled ‘Hope you’re No Diana’ and is about a car-crash in a tunnel (I assume), is stolen from Pavement. The outro bit of the second song ‘Cheerful Abortion Clinic’ is stolen from American Football. I guess there’s nothing wrong with plagiarizing your heroes – hell, loadsa great music is made that way. But I wouldn’t do it. Hyperbowl don’t do it. If someone mentioned to me that a Sex Pests riff sounds like such-and-such a band, I’d first of all insert a broken bottle into the face of the little weasel that said it, and then run home and flagellate myself all night.
The songs are really well recorded and sound great. I think they are a great band, just not my cuppa tea.
3.5 wobblies.
J. E. Griffiths
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