Music Review// Us Baby Bear Bones – Ursari
As goodbyes go, Us Baby
Bear Bones second and final E.P is one of the best you could wish for. Released
in a very limited edition run of physical copies, but thankfully available
digitally as well, this is one record that we’d been looking forward too.
Opening with the
industrial strength beats of Only One, a gloomy soundtrack to the anger of
lyrics, best summed with their snarling exclamation of ‘Am I the only one
getting shit done?’. A strong introduction then, to the claustrophobic
micro-climate of this particular release’s sonic brush…
Next up is the similarly
dark, but no less beautiful, DNA and it’s around this point the full force of
the record hits you. Once we enter the more subtle, key-tingles imbued She Is
the pressure drops a little but the lyrics still bite like a sharp word in the jugular. The
titular she is apparently ‘not a tender lover’ and that seems to echo the
brutal themes of the songs thus far. DNA references the presence of ‘DNA on my
sheets’ and taken with the erotically charged sleeve on the physical release it
makes for a darkly sexual analogy.
Even the sonic textures
here are not as knowingly Dream Pop inspired as previous release WSWAYEIAI and
although there is a surface glitter, it’s a darker, dirtier sound that suits
the band perfectly. When Old is heard for the first time, it’s so intriguing as
to be impossible to resist, with the production and arrangement as beautiful as
the music here is deceptively grey in tone.
Overall, this is certainly
a bang to go out on rather than a whimper and whatever projects the band
produce once their self-described ‘regeneration’ has finished Ursari is
something that will surely impress many years from now.
To answer the question put
to us on opener Only One, Us Baby Bear Bones and producer Steven Ansell (Blood
Red Shoes) certainly get shit done on this fine EP.
(#SRCZ)
