Bear In Heaven's debut album doesn't automatically reveal itself to the listener. It's too abstract to get in one sitting, full of through-composed songs and strange ambient pieces. But while it may take several spins to get everything, something about the album's atmosphere grabs you the first time. Maybe it's just that the record's most tangible assets-- the vocal melodies and rhythms-- are being held just out of reach, ready for the taking with a bit of work, or it could simply be the inventive textures they create. Whatever it is, Brooklyn's Bear in Heaven have a way of drawing you into their world and making you feel like you belong in its alien landscapes.
In that regard, it reminds me a bit of the early-1990s UK post-rock outfits Bark Psychosis and Disco Inferno. Those bands had influences of course, but, like Bear In Heaven, they put together their sounds in such a way that it was hard to tell exactly what those influences were. This is a band that will go from ambient washes of synth and samples to sludgy, pseudo-anthemic passages of throat-straining emotion to minimalist beat-making to slippery, Eno-inspired indie rock in one song like it's no big deal.
This approach works better on some tracks than others, naturally. Opener "Bag of Bags" has an oddly appropriate title because of the fact that its various passages don't link seamlessly-- it's a piece of music full of smaller pieces of music. But the next song, "Slow Gold", is just the opposite. The fragments it's built from fit together like a jigsaw puzzle as it glides from a mysterious intro through a couple of hushed indie-rock verses to a hellish passage full of loud, repetitive vocal phrases sung/shouted in close harmony.
The most haunting track is also the most abstract, a long, spooky piece called "Fraternal Noon", which recalls Can's "Aumgn" with its patchwork of strange sounds. The wordless vocals sound as though they're trapped inside the synthesizer that provides the main texture, and the heavy echo and processing make the guitar sound like percussion and certain bits of percussion feel like tonal instruments. It's essentially formless, but still somehow memorable, like a nightmare just after it's awakened you with a start.
With seven songs in 43 minutes, Red Bloom of the Boom feels something like a 70s prog-rock or krautrock album-- a true cohesive work in an era when the album-as-art form appears to be slowly dying. It has a dreamlike logic to the way it flows, going from the reverb-heavy "Fraternal Noon" straight into the driest song on the album, "Shining and Free", which stutters along on an unadorned, straightforward drum beat but also includes a few totally unexpected bursts of dub echo and phasing. It ends with a spine-chilling drone that whispers the album to an unresolved close. It's the perfect dénouement for a record that defies easy description and never goes quite where you think it will.
