It's now three geezerhood on from Polar Bear's last album, Held On The Tips Of Fingers. It's non surprising that it's taken the band a while to catch back in the studio and invest something substantial together. The shock-headed and ubiquitous Seb Rochford has been working on so much stuff in the last couple of days in and out of the F-IRE collective, that we should be grateful that he had the time to return to this mythical combo. The self-titled third base album is a triumph.
This time about, rather than Rochford and bassist, Tom Herbert, beingness the lynchpins, it's been left to the drifting lo-fi strain sax combo of Pete Wareham and Mark Lockheart to lead us into the Bear's world of vaguely dubby, glitchy, just always groovesome post-jazz. But this isn't to say that the bass doesn't hold the centre wish the biggest, most true hitching send you could care to tether your improv gymnastic horse to. There's rather more of a slinky Carribbean aspect to the flux now, like Sonny Rollins fed through Supercollider. Opener,Tay, shimmies into the room riding on Herbert's bass, and Tomlovesalicelovestom is a spry hop-skip through the most charming tune they've yet scripted. Leafcutter John's contributions are never overly pushy, though on this number he uses squeaks and squalls to dot the track with Clanger-like noises. If the Alice referred to is Coltrane, she'd o.K. of the cosmic bufoonery, I'm sure. Meanwhile Voices finds the band in pure digital land, filled up with chiming fretful bells and Industry is a cower through breathy melancholy and exclamation. Like another caterpillar track, It Snows Again, there's a gradual bulid up of tension that speaks volumes about the fashion in which they approach their sour these days.
For a band who could, at the drop of a lid, shred wallpaper if they so desired, Polar Bear is a surprisingly restrained affair, just that's no disappointment. Rather, the tunes and grooves contained herein speak of maturity, consideration and a great sense of precisely when to get weird on our collective asses.
The second raceway (perversely titled Goodbye) breaks into a space invaders-in-Birdland place halfway through, merely always the theme's nailed again in front the close two minutes of post-Soft machine double and drone electronica. Equally perversely named, Joy Jones, ends it all with beautifully funereal dissonance. It's a superbly liberating sense of release and control condition in fifty-fifty measure that makes Polar Bear such a fine record. Welcome back, boys...
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