Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth

If we are to believe the PR, Bear In Heaven have managed to ‘redefine time’ and ‘unbutton sound’ on this, their second album. To preface this review let us categorically state that this is completely untrue. The band have done nothing quite so grand (or ridiculously pretentious), rather they have made a vaguely interesting album marred by tedious moments.

Riding hot on the heels of psychedelic success stories such as Animal Collective and Yeasayer, Bear In Heaven come bearing musical oddities in pop-shaped boxes, ready to interest and enthral simultaneously. Whilst that premise is all well and good, it doesn’t hold water if you can’t achieve that consistently – and consistency is precisely the problem here. Between, and even within, songs there are moments of brilliance tempered with the dullest of attempts at experimentation. ‘Beast In Peace’s tribal drumbeat or the wonderful segue between ‘Wholehearted Mess’ and ‘You Do Who’ are a good start to the album, but once you reach the pseudo-Flaming Lips pastiche of ‘Lovesick Teenagers’ it becomes a distinctly mixed bag that never truly settles.

The hypnotic krautrock of ‘Dust Cloud’ is spellbinding, but gives way to the cringeworthy ‘Drug A Wheel’ which seems to have singer Jon Philpot almost rapping. For every good point, there’s a poor counterpoint, which the band can never quite shake off, and it doesn’t help that Philpot’s vocals, in seemingly attempting to show an uninterested cool end up sounding lacklustre and uninspiring throughout. It certainly seems that Bear In Heaven have what it takes to be a darker version of their more successful Brooklyn buddies, but before they can start redefining time with their music, they have to redefine the music itself, because it doesn’t work just yet.