Minus The Bear - Menos El Oso

Minus The Bear's latest album is a refreshing mix of influences from seventies and eighties pop/rock sounds, plus the modern input of the West Coast American sound.

Eleven tracks (twelve if you include the additional remix of the last song This Ain't A Surfin' Movie) make up nearly fifty minutes, and all songs have a strong indie sound, mixed with The Police and They Might Be Giants in places.

Vocalist Jake Snider has a remarkable voice, very Sting sounding, and if you heard this around twenty-five years ago, you could have mistaken quite easily for thinking it was The Police!

On the whole, most of the songs are up-tempo with a nice feel to them. As mentioned before, Jake's voice is quite strong and fits in well with the overall music, the guitars are nice sounding, and there are some nice percussion touches.

This album keeps you interested from the very start, and there isn't a weak track on it at all, which means it's hard to pick a favourite.

I would expect this album to do well because of it's mainstream qualities, but it has a nice flavour to be different. It is what I would describe a car album, something easy to listen to because it's not really complex enough to make you listen carefully.

A pleasing effort, recommended.

Danny Mayo

Minus The Bear

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