Reviews | ||
indicator.com - Bits And Pieces EP - January 2005
Stretching over 23 minutes the e.p. contains enough artistic directions to fill an entire album. After the sublime wonderfulness of their eponymous debut album, this follow up set its sights on new heights of sonic excellence. 'Leadbelt' the lead track is Ride at their glorious peak with a hint of Sonic Youth thrown in for good measure. The second track 'Seeing Stars' reverts to blueprint Sunbear, crashing guitars creating a pile up of sound with just enough room to squeeze in a Martin Kelly’s searing vocal. At some point, the inevitable happens as your aural taste buds reach saturation level, unable to absorb even the clang of a rusty triangle, but hey that's what the pause button was invented for. 'Bits' (that's bits that float around when you close your eyes) kicks in uneasily with the effortless grace of a Pavement record, but where Pavement merely amble Sunbear find direction in a hook that generates a heart warming climax and perfectly illustrates the message the song was created for. The fourth track 'Each To Their Own' is simplicity personified, like a Delgados outtake and you know how precious they are. There is even room for a bonus track, a feedback drenched take on ‘Bits’. Sunbear (and much of the Dublin scene they inhabited in the mid nineties, read Rollerskate Skinny, In Motion, The Sewing Room & Whipping Boy) could have been something. But they weren’t, despite some brief acclaim on the peoplesound website in 2000 (the Dog e.p.) it just wasn’t to be. As a minor consolation and as the bear bones turn in their grave this e.p. is awarded greatness.
Dublin Event Guide (23 November 1994) This actually came as a big, and decidedly pleasant surprise. Sunbear have been messing around with sonic experimentation for some time, with varying degrees of success and recognition, but they will never be noted (in my mind anyway) as great men for the old pop consciousness. Well, Sunbear's self titled debut, while duly nailing their leftfield credentials to the wall, also delivers melodic value for money. The Byrds, maybe, the Cocteau Twins, definitely, even the Beatles "Abbey Road" (The harmonising on 'Resin') all spring to mind amidst the swirl of guitars, especially throughout the first half of the album, entitled "Opening Notes". The ghost of Spiritualized appears on 'Centre Page', a spiraling meandering ambient drone which would grace the chill out zone of any indie club, while bizarre blasts of noise blurt out as the album progresses onto "Closed Book". Sometimes the the thing is a bit too self-consciously inward looking, and certainly I could have done without the thirty minutes of traffic noises that close the disc (I shit thee not!) but I look forward to Sunbear's next publication. MH
Hot Press - 30 November 1994 BEAR NECESSITIES LAPPING, lapping, lapping. Swishing, swishing, swishing. Crashing, crashing, crashing. In and around you. Out on the fringes, where a guitar note swishes and stretches and reaches. Spread like a wish, like a dream, like hope itself.... Youth and energy and the willingness to experiment. And innocence. And sincerity. Filled with all these ingredients. Burned on the horizon, the ashes drank by the ocean. The Sunbear rises and looks skywards.
Tell us an electric fairytale. Give us our daily feedback and let us out to play. Draw the line between that boyish voice and that distortion. That distortion unleashed to ravage the fine melody. To devour devour it and to throw it up as something new. But it's back again. Every time, after the attack, it resurfaces as if it were never touched. And yet the song is all in flux, veering between honey and starvation, between normality and madness. The melancholy side of first love. But the music makes sure that it is never down. Full and inspired by the likes of Sonic Youth and the Byrds, Sunbear wed that pure Byrds-like high intensity pop melody to the wild and divergent surges of amped up craziness. They hold to the pure and then take it to some limits. 'Centre Page' goes down an instrumental avenue. Ambient, it meanders and you can imagine the countless images that its video might give birth to. It's a beautiful piece; some kind of spiritual. And this is a really beautiful and moving debut from a young Dublin band who have had the courage and belief to put their own money behind what in every sense is a superb product (the album cover has real style). There used to be a sign on O'Connell Street about Dublin being the musical capital of the world. I thought it was an utter load of crap at the time. Dublin will never be able to claim such an arrogant title, but with bands like Sunbear and Wormhole it has certainly produced two of the best albums I've heard this year. Gerry McGovern
Hot Press - July 1995 SINGLE OF THE FORTNIGHT Sunbear make big bold and very beautiful music. Here, the guitars crash and grind while Martin Kelly sounds like a lost innocent on vocals, pitching them somewhere between Ride and The Smashing Pumpkins. They keep a firm grip on melody, however, and even though the arrangements are elaborate, they never loose the plot. With a track called 'Bits (that float around when you close your eyes)' they could be accused of eyelid gazing, but we won't hold that against them. The above along with the rollicking 'Leadbelt' and the melancholic beauty of 'Seeing Stars' do more than enough to justify the coveted Single Of The Fortnight slot. John Walshe
Road Records "Sunbear" - March 1998 "Sunbear's debut album was released in 1994 on the BearBones label and since then the band have grown into one the most consistent live draws around.. We are still waiting for a follow-up though. They also run the groovy "It's Not Your Birthday" club (now moved to Columbia Mills) where punters can dance away to Joe Dolan hits of yesteryear." Hugh McCabe
Sunbear web-site: December 1994 "It's been a few years now, since a friend of a friend encouraged me to venture toward my first Sunbear gig. I wasn't really that keen , but I went along anyhow. It didn't take me long to recognise the seed that was to grow into one of Dublin's finest bands in years. If you've heard them already, you know I speak the truth. If you haven't heard them yet, you should get your ass in gear. If you don't get your ass in gear you're gonna hear them pretty soon whether you want or not." "Begin your love affair; before your soul deserts you because you've been starving it of the one thing it really needs: Sunbear."
Translated by Google: "Dog" begins as melancholische song and ends as fresh Britpop Knaller. The album "Sunbear" originated in to 1996, while the Irish guitar volume of the same name is active already for seven years. It becomes time that the four young from Dublin itself finally aufrappeln to conquer the world! Fans of experimentiellem Indie skirt Pop might enjoy their Sunbear.
Missed by Morrissey - Irish Times "...Absurdly, it was a case of a late arrival a Dublin venue, Whelans, that enabled the former Smiths' frontman to see Sack. In Dublin for the sale of his house, he initially aimed to see a different band, Sunbear, support act to Sack on the night, but between one thing and another Mozzer missed the support and stayed for Sack. The resulting meeting snagged support slots on a threemonth Morrissey tour of Europe and the US west coast. Cue a rise in public profile among people who had never heard of Sack, performances in front of up to 5,000 people a night, sales of T-shirts and albums the like of which they'd never experienced - and being greeted with the endearing "Sack you're the bomb" by eager-beaver Morrissey fans in Los Angeles."
Various Artists: Abstraction Of Sound Logic (Folkrum) Folkrum is a new independent label which offers an alternative to the clichés so pivotal to mainstream Irish rock. No sweeping soundscapes, no Celtic wibbling and no manufactured pop, just a collection of "slo-fo" oddities by such wilfully obscure acts as Simple Folk, Null Set and Moon Palace. Listening to Capratone's Non- Local or Chris McKibbon's Local Boy, you'd swear that all Irish bands were obsessed with American alt. country; Sunbear's Poke My Side and The Sound Of Bells' Worldwept, however, suggest a wider range of influences. If you're allergic to intense young people with acoustic guitars, then Sean's Still Love and Aoife Faughnan's Ever There may have you breaking out in hives; but check out the quasi-experimental attitude of Happy Stack's Breathe and The Mighty Avon Jr's Rapture Me Now. Kevin Courtney
dooyoo.co.uk - BITS AND PIECES EP "Piece De Resistance"
After the sublime wonderfulness of their eponymous debut album, the new material set its sights on new heights of sonic excellence. 'Leadbelt' the lead track is Ride at their glorious peak with a hint of Sonic Youth thrown in for good measure. The second track 'Seeing Stars' reverts to blueprint Sunbear, crashing guitars creating a pile up of sound with just enough room to squeeze in a plaintiff vocal. At some point, the inevitable will occur as your musical taste buds reach saturation level, unable to absorb even the clang of a rusty triangle, but hey that's what the pause button was invented for. 'Bits' (that's bits that float around when you close your eyes) kicks in uneasily with the effortless grace of a Pavement record, but where Pavement merely amble Sunbear find direction in a hook that generates a heart warming climax and perfectly illustrates the message the song was created for. The fourth track 'Each To Their Own' is simplicity personified and is the perfect antidote to what preceded it. All in all there is enough evidence on show to prove that Sunbear are worthy bets for the next big thing. As the bear bones turn in their grave, this truly great Irish single is awarded greatness. 4/5 | ||
"‘Be awful tentative in awarding greatness to an Irish single as patriotic zeal can elevate an ordinary tune into the realms of pop heaven', once warned my ultra clued-in grandmother. No such charge of nepotism could ever be levelled at Sunbear (named after an exhibit in a ‘Dead Zoo’!) however, because this e.p. was one of 1996’s shining lights. Like their debut album there were only 1000 copies ever issued.
"Dog" beginnt als melancholische Ballade und endet als frischer Britpop-Knaller. Das Album "Sunbear" ist 1996 entstanden, während die gleichnamige irische Gitarrenband bereits seit sieben Jahren aktiv ist. Es wird Zeit, dass die vier Jungs aus Dublin sich endlich aufrappeln, die Welt zu erobern! Fans von experimentiellem Indie-Rock-Pop dürften an Sunbear ihre Freude haben.
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