Live Review: Bear in Heaven, The End, March 9th
I came to know Bear in Heaven’s shadowy, enveloping music through the band’s 2009 breakout LP, Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Hometapes), a record that’s better experienced as a whole than by rigorously parsing each track for its own merits. This isn’t meant to absolve BIH of their responsibility as songwriters; classic records like Loveless (Creation) by My Bloody Valentine or Low Level Owl Vol. I & II (Deep Elm) by The Appleseed Cast were conceived and delivered as comprehensive sets, too. In their own way, each of these albums present their creators as cartographers, sussing out with fine detail the musical geography of ideas and emotions both on personal and conceptual levels. On Beast Rest Forth Mouth, Bear in Heaven went even further: the undeniably catchy “Lovesick Teenagers” not only delighted our myopic MP3 culture, it provided the thematic spine for the entire record.
Understanding Bear in Heaven’s experiential quality is important for putting into context their live performance. We aren’t supposed to pay the door fare simply to dance to the Modest Mouse-ian guitar jangle of “Wholehearted Mess” or the instantly recognizable “Lovesick Teenagers,” treating the band like some top 40 star with several millions of downloads and one, maybe two songs the show goer actually paid to hear. An aside: The irony is rich considering Ke$ha, a young pop singer groomed for digital success, was one of perhaps 100 people at the show. Her recent #1 hit, “Tik Tok,” set enough chart records for her to set sail on a perpetual cruise, alleviating her of the trouble of creating any type of song experience — she “brushes her teeth with Jack Daniels,” ya’ll — ever again (we won’t be that lucky). No, through the demure, unexpected low impact of the set’s opening, to the cascading, layered climax, Bear in Heaven ignored its occasional pop pretense and took the room on an excursion.
It took a few songs to recalibrate my mind to the band’s electronic, psych haze being produced by three, rather than Beast Rest’s four contributors, but Jon Philpot (vocals, keyboards, guitars), Adam Wills (guitars) and Joe Stickney (drums, percussion) ultimately commanded our attention to their somber tableau. Somewhere along the krautrock dirge of “Ultimate Satisfaction” and the floating darkness of “You Do You,” Bear in Heaven began to emulate their chosen name, creating a textured, throbbing world that greatly enhanced what lacked in the opening.
Photo Credit: Patrick Copeland
