If you’re looking out for a new slice of power pop/indie rock then Hello Bear will fulfill your head nodding/toe tapping foot quota easily
If you’re looking out for a new slice of power pop/indie rock then Hello Bear will fulfill your head nodding/toe tapping foot quota easily
There’s something about a three piece band that is just irresistible. Guitar, bass, drums, vocals. Simple, powerful, effective. Every member of the band has a job to do and they all have to do it properly. Lose a member and it will all fall apart. Hello Bear manage to hold things together despite some very obvious limitations because they play with such gusto and old fashioned OOMPH. If you’re looking out for a new slice of power pop/indie rock then Hello Bear will fulfill your head nodding/toe tapping foot quota easily. This One girl… is full of catchy indie pop rock tunes that would fit well into the average Steve Lamacq playlist. Although there’s nothing truly earth shattering here, there’s a lot of fun to be had.
Lyrically they take themselves a bit too seriously but let’s just put that down to youth and the fact that they come from East Anglia. Poor chaps. Also, they’re technically not the most talented band in the world but HEY, when has that ever mattered? Hello Bear are bloody brilliant precisely because they can’t play very well. They sound like Guided By Voices playing Feeder songs. Mental. Bonkers. Brilliant. I love the fact that they try to disguise their limitations by playing hard, fast and shouting wherever possible. Take the song Mr Happy’s Fun, Super-Awesome-Wild-Slide which is essentially the sound of a band falling over each other trying to get to the last note. Or She’s Got Some Battle Scars Dude which descends into the kind of angst ridden yelping normally reserved for late night karaoke sessions at the student union. It’s hilarious and I love it. The album feels like a collection of great songs the band haven’t quite figured out how to play properly yet but by Christ do they try.
Hello Bear are a breath of fresh air. Even if they take themselves a little too seriously, they’re enough of a shambles for you not to care too much and they carve out enough grooves to get you dancing around the living room wishing for Friday night to come around. Which, let’s face it, is what you really want from this kind of thing.
This one girl… is a glorious, sloppy, drunken fumble of an album and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Tremendous stuff.