Bear Hands are a post-punkish New York indie guitar band. They’ve been together for about 25 minutes (or a year, whaetever) and they’ve just surfaced with this first ‘proper’ release – The Golden EP.

Now, I’ve had a bit of a bee in my bonnet about guitar music recently. Among the more thought out arguments that I’ve been trumpeting is that rock and indie and it’s derivatives have become “mostly boring, generic shit” and just ‘”hype band after hideous hype band!”.

Some people were actually beginning to take me seriously, I could tell they were thinking “Well, this guy writes music reviews in his spare time and his face is getting really red as he talks, maybe he’s onto something.” Then what happens? Well first the bloody Kings of Leon release another brilliant volley of rock songs and then I pick up a CD by a trendy, hyped post-punk band to do a review on and end up liking it. And now I look like a dick.

So yeah The Bear Hands EP is pretty darn good. It’s exhibits some good lo-fi indie rock know-how, backed up by something of the poppy swagger we’d expect from someone like We Are Scientists. Moments of very nearly discordant, arythmical Modest Mouse-esque groves threaten to penetrate at any moment, but Dylan Rau’s slick phrasings and smooth-as-you-like vocals hold everything together in a very accessible fashion.

The whole thing comes off sounding as much like four-American –guys-who-are in-a-band-and-are-much-cooler-than-you as any new indie rock band out of Brooklyn should be expected to. And I like it, it’s solid but not anything really special.

But then again, what the hell do I know?
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Bear Hands on Myspace