Sunbear

SUNBEAR: “Sunbear” (Bear Bones)

Lapping, lapping, lapping. Swishing, swishing, swishing. Crashing, crashing, crashing. In and around you. Bang. Out on the fringes, where a guitar note swishes and stretches and reaches. Spread like a wish, like a dream, like hope itself . . .

Youth and energy and the willingness to experiment. And innocence. And sincerity. Filled with all these ingredients. Burned on the horizon, the ashes drank by the ocean. The sunbear rises and looks skywards.

Tell us an electric fairy tale. Give us our daily feedback and let us out to play. Draw the line between that boyish voice and that distortion. That distortion unleashed to ravage the fine melody. To devour it and throw it up as something new. But it’s back again. Everytime, after the attack, it resurfaces as if it was never touched. And yet the song is all in flux, veering between honey and starvation, between normality and madness.

The words are lost as they swim. Now and then they rise for breath and you hear them sing that: “Your life is not your own/Your life is not your own.” Other times you hear them hum that: “Sitting by the side of the bed/Saying all the things that you said/Oh I read them once and then I turn away/I’m gonna save my sorrows for some other day.” (‘Something To Dream Of’)

The melancholy side of first love. But the music makes sure that it is never down. Full, and inspired by the likes of Sonic Youth (who name-checked them at Sunstroke ’93) and The Byrds, Sunbear wed that pure Byrds-like high-intensity pop melody to wild and divergent surges of amped-up craziness. They hold to the pure and then take it to some limits.

‘Centre Page’ goes down an instrumental avenue. Ambient, it meanders and you can imagine the countless images that its video might give birth to. It’s a really beautiful piece; some kind of spiritual. And this is a really beautiful and moving debut from a young Dublin band who have had the courage and belief to put their own money behind what is in every sense a superb product (the album cover has real style).

There used to be a sign on O’Connell Street about Dublin being the musical capital of the world. I thought it was an utter load of crap at the time. Dublin will never be able to claim such an arrogant title, but with bands like Sunbear and Wormhole it has certainly produced two of the best albums I’ve heard this year.

• Gerry McGovern

• (You can get a copy of this album by sending £6 (includes P&P) to Bear Bones, 147 Parnell Street, Dublin 1. Or else, go to the launch gig in Whelan’s on 28th November. It’s £5 in and you’ll get a free CD album.)