Seabear – We Built a Fire

A lot of things are stirring in Iceland these days. But, lest we forget, the vibrant music scene came before the country's current economic woes. Bjork, Sigur Ros, even Mum, all added their characteristic stamp on 'alternative' music, with notably experimental elements. Lumping Seabear in with this trend would be unhelpful, what we have here is more standard fare, something their record label MORR refers to charmingly as 'naive folk'. However, from humble lo-fi beginnings in singer Sindri Már Sigfússon's bedroom, the band has now snowballed into a 7-piece, giving their latest offering We Built a Fire, a much more fully-formed folk sound than its 2007 predecessor The Ghost That Carried Us Away. The standard of musicianship throughout the album is very high, as you'd expect from a band who all seem to be multi-tasking in homegrown musical projects.Indie-folk often crashes on the rocks of twee, but Seabear chart a safe course through choppy waters. Opener 'Lion face boy' builds to a nice crescendo with fiddle, harmonium and horn, but it's nye on impossible to escape comparisons with Owen Pallett and Arcade Fire. Fiddle is also used to nice effect on songs like 'Fire Lies Down' and 'I'll Build You a Fire', but please, please! Stop using the F-word and nagging comparisons will cease! 'Soft Ship' and 'Warm Blood' have a harder edge, and are sonically more indie-rock. An album highlight is surely the 'epic' 5 minute 'Cold Summer', where Sigfusson's plaintive vocals tell the story of young love, fiddle used masterfully to pick up the pace half way, then leave the song for dead at the end with eerie haunting sounds. 'We Fell Off the Roof' is no slouch either. A really beautiful tune held together by Sigfusson's best vocal, more Devendra-than-Win (Butler) has to be said, in fact Seabear and Arcade Fire respectfully part company here, some of the lyrics are quite dark and at odds with the twee and twinkling sounds of the musical accompaniment: "We fell off the roof ... I burnt that house down for you." Uh! And he sounded so sweet about it!The band's ability to rock out suggests a formidable proposition live, maybe where part of the problem lies. A full-on indie folk band needs a live arena, whether warming us on a crisp winter night or chilling us on a balmy summer's afternoon ... they may indeed have built a fire, trouble is it burns better outside! Sometimes, when people are not sure what to make of a band, the back-handed compliments start flying ... Sigfusson has been called the 'Icelandic Beck' and Seabear likened to Arcade Fire with the plugs pulled out ... so possibly still a great work in progress, but this fast-developing artist and his band hope to be around, well, longer than the Icelandic banks...