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Bears
Shortest Day of the Year
Bears Pop Music
The new E.P. from Cleveland's Bears both does and doesn't live up to its name. With only two of its seven songs making it over the three-minute mark on a collection that barely spans seventeen minutes, this definitely falls on the side of brevity. Yet, despite the allusions to the winter solstice suggested by the title, the sound of Shortest Day of the Year is all summer... and summer begets nostalgia.
Featuring upbeat acoustic guitar, backing vocals, handclaps, and--oh my God, is that a glockenspiel?--Shortest Day of the Year slips into a time warp, past the Vacation Bible School and scouting sing-a-longs of the 70’s and 80’s, respectively, back towards the influences of vox-heavy 1960s pop. If you listen carefully, you can hear the aftershocks of The Beach Boys, The Mamas & The Papas, and The Byrds.
However, for a group so focused on vocal arrangements, Bears don't use their intricate harmonies to say terribly much. While they do occasionally turn a great line, such as "counting to six and prehistoric times" (in "You Can Tell"), some of their lyrics (albeit arguably no worse than, say, those of Belle & Sebastian's "The Boy Done Wrong Again") are a bit unforgivable: "You're causing all my pain/We'll never be the same." And I'm still on the fence as to whether "Tell me you didn't tell your mom we're not getting along" is funny or just childish. It's this kind of awkward specificity that makes most of the songs seem introverted, even though they deal with relationships.
But what Bears lack in lyric originality, they make up for in instrumental aptitude. Most of the verbal pitfalls are absorbed by their sweet, addictive backdrop of guitar-and-glock arrangements. This effect makes Shortest Day of the Year a lot like summer--pleasant, if not memorable, and over before you know it.
--Christine Fort
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