Zac Wood is building his own brick house. He's bringing on the mighty, mighty. After being in numerous dude bands, he decided to tackle the challenge of being his own one man project. He handpicked an incompatible name, Bear Flambe'. "Laying Bricks" dropped today. The 10 song album blisters with unseemly lyrics, maniacal laughter and whip smart post punk riffs. It's glorious. "You've had enough to drink/ NOW PUT DOWN THE SPATULA!"
The band name emerged from a made up game. They cut up pieces of paper ala Dada style. He and his artistic girlfriend put two hats side by side. One was for nouns. The other held the verbs. They popped them in the chapeaus, mixed them around and then grabbed one noun, one verb. They placed them next to each other to see what transpired. Zac thought Bear Grill would be a harmonious appellation. He did the due diligence to discover the incongruous band name was taken by another band. “I didn't want it to make sense. I mean, what does Tame Impala mean?”
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| Tame? |
“My collar may be blue/I may not make much money/I’m happier not running through your hoops.” Boom like that. I wasn’t going to review "Circle in a Square".” I listened hard again to the soul searching and the mockery about the uselessness of some college courses and patronizing rom coms grabbed my cynical soul. With his spoken word lyrics, wailing guitar riffs, and attitude, Zac is out to bang on the drum of perceived societal norms. Borrowing from the dangerous dalliances of Nick Cave and the Birthday Party and the forever inimitable Tom Waits, he is unafraid to birth songs swathed in the cloth of perverse observation. The use of knavish drumming paired with irreverent, imperfect guitar rattling ride right under Zac's low roar. Listen up Smart ass.
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| Meet Riot Boi |
Bear Flambe' is resurrecting gripe rock devoid of doctored up pretension much like the English phenoms, Black Midi. I wrote about Black Midi after imbibing their KEXP session. The unsmiling band stormed the stage with feral feline allure. Zac told me if he had to take 3 bands to the Island of Misunderstanding, he would load up the playlist with Sonic Youth, Parquet Courts, and the impudent Black Midi. You can sense the channeling of the young lads who met in art school and are now turning convention on it's perfectly sculpted ass. Fuck Grammarly and Photoshop.
The songs are airbrushed with post punk ruby red and dank black. The haunting voice of Michael Gira, the genius front boy of the Swans, is invoked on a few tracks. The Gira growl is heardon the evocative ending track. Bands like Bear Flambe' are poised to stir the embers as they capture your mind. These post punk compositions bolt full speed over the useless bumps. These rip at the sheep. They want to be the leaders. Heed the fierce wake up call, “Wise up man/woman. Step out of your bubble of pretend. It’s happening all around you. Open your eyes”.
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| The Swans - Fire on Fire |
As Hugo Ball expressed it, "For us, art is not an end in itself ... but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in."[17]
Go kids.
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