Still Life Terrarium

Digging into the sophomore record from Buffalo's Bearhunter is much like sinking the old teeth into one of those crazy candy bars with a whole bunch of layers. Every taste you get something different, but it mixes together with an unmistakable appeal. With Still Life Terrarium (recorded locally at Harvest Studios) there's the dark coating, an overload of crunchy riffs, a creamy melodic swirl, and bits of chewy pop that always surprise. The tight three-piece combo of brothers David and Mike Calos (singer/guitarist and drummer, respectively) with bassist Rob Pusateri shows leanings toward Dinosaur Jr's slack, and destroy with a pervading sense of foreboding and a dynamic and delivery that suggests Modest Mouse. As David Calos sings on Pants, the album's opening track, Life comes so fast that you can't take a rest. With that in mind, Bearhunter,barely wastes a moment across this winning batch of songs. There's a grand drama that Bearhunter gets that so many other bands can't fathom. Take songs like Non Importe, which starts delicately but evolves to a sprawling tear, or the bluesy, Zepp-ish Shake a Fist. This is not that typical smart-ass, stop-and-start rock that so often is the passport for a legion of lesser indie bands. There's a tempered, artful build at work in these songs and in the way Still Life Terrarium plays out as a whole. There's also plenty of room for joyful rock abandon of Witches Watch-with fuzzy guitar and plinking piano-or the ecstatic, poppy air lifts of Been a Year, which closes the album with a dizzying delight as David Calos puts his crisp falsetto to good use. There's a lot of suggestion that in the a la carte iTunes singles society we're currently in that the album format is dead. Thankfully, no one has let Bearhunter know. Recorded from November 2009 -April 2010 at Harvest Studios in Buffalo, NY and Orchard Park NY.