In your face and tremendously noisy, I feel this is the most apt description I can give to ///, the latest effort from Bear. Featuring plenty of slabs of noise and many opportunities to bang your head to, it’s an exciting and energetic piece that really delivers.
What’s good about this album is that whilst the band project a wall of noise at you for the most part, but there’s good little interjections of melody on occasion, and it helps to divide things up a little better and give the piece a more natural flow and give the listener time to catch a breather!
Third track Masks is a feisty inclusion, featuring bellowed, meaty vocals in both clean and harsh approaches (it’s nice to hear that the energy and power isn’t lost during the clean lines!) and the layer of heavy instrumentation beneath the vocals packs a real punch, featuring riffs aplenty and foot-tappingly good beats. Meanwhile later track Raw lives up to its name with a rough and raw performance – and the softer section in the latter half with very emotive clean vocals really adds some extra depth.
/// is a great album. Pick up a copy, stick it in your CD player or onto your mp3 player, and play it LOUD!
9/10
