If you can imagine Graham Coxon swapping his pick and rustic acoustic guitar, that he used on his last album ‘The Spinning Top’, and swapping it for quirky keyboards and electronica which sometimes veers into full on escapist pop then you won’t be far from what Bearcraft sounds like on his new album ‘Yestreen.’
‘Out On A Limb’ in particular sounds like Menswear colliding full on with Tommy Sparks – remember him from last year- in the race to make space face pop at its wackiest. The opening track ‘Hero Man Gets TO The Castle’ starts of a bit subdued, before the full on pelt on the aforementioned ‘Out On A Limb’, it goes between these 2 differences throughout the album. The wackiness gets a bit irritating on ‘Broadswords’ where Bearcraft is whining about wanting a ticket to Venus or something, although a darker shade is cast rather intriguingly on the latter part of the track, its like The Wombats being sped up. ‘Dark Night’ is a lot calmer, although he does sound like an out of tune Damon Albarn at his most cockney.
On the other hand Bearcraft could be the next musical genius in waiting. As part of the album does show potential, with the music but his voice needs improving. But there does seem to be a vision in there somewhere. Such as ‘The Werewolf’s’ lo-fi electro bump is something Hot Chip might be envious of. Bearcraft should definitely do more songs like this. ‘Polly’s Garden’ gets into an intriguing groove too. Also ‘The Omega Point’ and its rocky yet gospel tendency is pretty thrilling too, like a low key Europe if that’s at all possible and if you can imagine that. Also the dark pop soul of the title track is pretty delicious too.
The last 5 tracks is definitely a lot better than the first half of the album, its seems that throughout the album that Bearcraft has been experimenting and has realised what he want to sound like and has become happy with it over the course of the 10 tracks on ‘Yestreen.’ Particularly as it veers away from sounding too much like Tommy Sparks.
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