After unveiling hints on Instagram, Bear In Heaven is excited to announce their new album, Time is Over One Day Old (out August 5th on Dead Oceans). Aptly titled, it's a record with a visceral relationship to time and its processes. When bands age well, their vitality takes shape. They wear, but with intention. They trim excesses. Bear In Heaven has always made intriguing records. 2007's Red Bloom of the Boom is ambitious and experimental. Beast Rest Forth Mouth (2009) was a pivotal record that introduced them to the wider, wilder world. It's a work that still feels important, seductive and intense. On their 2012 LP, I Love You, It's Cool, the structural and musical ideas are masterfully developed yet it sits at a strange remove and is a record as much (or more) about observing as it is about participating.
On Time is Over One Day Old, we witness the band once again turning their gaze inward and prioritizing their evocative abilities in line with or even slightly ahead of technical skills. It feels very much in the tradition of Beast Rest Forth Mouth in that way. It's beautiful; it's moving. They carefully balance moments of joyful simplicity and deep complexity. It's easy to see why musicians fall hard for this band. They entice and envelop you. Any Bear In Heaven song will most likely greet you with a provocative beat, textural synthesizers and unassuming but adeptly supportive bass and guitar, all exquisitely arranged and glistening. It's a kind of density that you want to bite right into. Jon Philpot's high, smooth, strong voice is so tightly wound into the music that it can be easy to overlook the lyrics, Bear In Heaven's capacious third dimension. Philpot is a center-seeking, contemplative writer who captures the fleeting thoughts that underscore our emotional lives, the interactions with the world that are both difficult to express and anathema in daily conversation.
Here Philpot and Adam Wills are more deeply collaborative than ever, in no small part because of the shared frustrations that have recurred as topics of conversation throughout the 10 years of living as a band together. This album is darker at times, louder than their others; it feels personal and direct. Relatively new to the band, drummer Jason Nazaryadapts and adds to Bear In Heaven's sound and structure. Wills, who is gregarious and outspoken in person, has always been the bands anchor, providing rock solid, rhythmic bass lines and guitars that blur the boundaries of Philpot's synth. This album isn't about being dark, it's about releasing darkness and frustration.
Philpot recognizes that being in a band isn't a normal way of life. In speaking about Time Is Over One Day Old, he says, "we're setting aside the things that most people focus on [and instead] staking our claim in some ethereal place". For him this is about making something lasting. "A lot of shedding, getting rid of layers and pre-conceptions... breaking up with old ways of thinking, old ways of being, starting to look at this thing in a new way and finding something positive." The result is a record that will stay with you.
Philpot sums it up: "...that's about all we can do; make people feel something."
LISTEN TO BEAR IN HEAVEN'S "TIME BETWEEN":
BEAR IN HEAVEN TOUR DATES:
Mon. Aug. 4 - Brooklyn, NY @ Rough Trade (in-store)
Wed. Aug. 20 - Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda's
Thu. Aug. 21 - Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
Fri. Aug. 22 - Washington, DC @ Rock and Roll Hotel
Sat. Aug. 23 - Carrboro, NC @ Cat's Cradle (Back Room)
Sun. Aug. 24 - Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
Tue. Aug. 26 - Baton Rouge, LA @ Spanish Moon
Wed. Aug. 27 - Houston, TX @ House of Blues (Bronze Peacock)
Thu. Aug. 28 - Austin, TX @ The Parish
Tue. Sept. 2 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Echoplex
Wed. Sept. 3 - San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
Fri. Sept. 5 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Sat. Sept. 6 - Spokane, WA @ Bartfest
Sun. Sept. 7 - Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey
Wed. Sept. 10 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry
Thu. Sept. 11 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
Fri. Sept. 12 - Columbus, OH @ A&R Music Bar
Sat. Sept. 13 - Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
Sun. Sept. 14 - Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rossa
Tue. Sept. 16 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Wed. Sept. 17 - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Thu. Oct. 2 - London, UK @ XOYO
Fri. Oct. 3 - Brussels, BE @ Beursschouwburg
Sat. Oct. 4 - Paris, FR @ Espace B
Sun. Oct. 5 - Amsterdam, NL @ Bitterzoet
Mon. Oct. 6 - Cologne, DE @ Club 672
Tue. Oct. 7 - Berlin, DE @ Berghain
Thu. Oct. 9 - Copenhagen, DK @ Ideal Bar
Fri. Oct. 10 - Lund, SE @ Mejeriet
Sat. Oct. 11 - Stockholm, SE @ Kagelbanan
Sun. Oct. 12 - Goteborg, SE @ Pustervik
Mon. Oct. 13 - Oslo, NO @ John Dee
Tue. Oct. 14 - Bergen, NO @ Landmark
Thu. Oct. 16 - Aarhus, DK @ Atlas
Fri. Oct. 17 - Hamburg, DE @ Aalhaus
Time Is Over One Day Old tracklist:
1. Autumn
2. Time Between
3. If I Were To Lie
4. They Dream
5. The Sun and The Moon and The Stars
6. Memory Heart
7. Demon
8. Way Off
9. Dissolve The Walls
10. You Don't Need The World
Bear In Heaven online:
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