Bearsuit ~ The Phantom Forest review

Posted on 12 December 2010
By Andrew Backhouse
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If you go down to The Phantom Forest today, you’re sure to get a big surprise! Bearsuit lay out their tantalising treats of art-rock treacle and invite us – along with ghosts from their past, present and future – for a picnic of delights.

Creativity is a torturous ally. It is with you as soon as you’re able to utilise it to your advantage – then sticks with you, imploring that you feed it, harvest its wares, and uses you for its devious ends.

Bearsuit have clearly been hounded by this inner beast, chased down many corridors and twisting stairs until – finally – they were able to harness it. Leash it and train it into the bewildering array of acrobatics as displayed on their fantastic forthcoming forth album The Phantom Forest.

After the noisy, jagged art-punk eccentricity of Oh:io – poof! – Bearsuit vanished without a trace, later to emerge from the shadows of the dark woodland having binned the accordion, flute, cornet, violin – and a number of percussion instruments – with a change in both the line-up and the mood compared to Bearsuit’s former guise.

Our furry art-rock mammals thumbed through Fantastic Plastic’s producer-du-jour handbook, alighting on Gareth Parton (The Go! Team, Foals, Dutch Uncles) to helm the band’s voyage through the vigorous indie seas to explore poppier horizons – sprinkling his sonic wizardry to astonishing effect – and discovering a refreshingly colorful, vibrant and rich new sound to be treasured.

Having blasted his indie CPR machine into the withering, critically ill health of today’s DIY pop world, Parton certainly knows a thing or two about netting the ideas of Britain’s most innovative songwriters, while subtly adding a droplet of art-pop culture and chaos.

The fruits of this partnership are no exception, as Iain Ross explains: “Gareth is a gentleman and a bit of a genius, and he brought out the pop elements of our songs, more so than any previous recordings we’ve made. But he also loves distortion, feedback and spontaneous noise, so it was a good match for us.”

Take Princess, You’re a Test as the headfirst plunge from the diving board, a splash of girl -group-y vocals with the volcanic distortion bubbling underneath, yanking and weaving discordant sounds together – but with more than enough melody to sweeten the pill.

“See you on the other side, ectoplasm!” croon the new Ghostbusters of art-rock, on the hunt to zap the ghouls-in-suits that excrete the commercial indie fodder churning out of our radios.

Train Wreck may begin with a gospel harmony blanket of mist that sounds like it could burst into a cover of Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, but thankfully this isn’t the case, as the Bears teleport you back in time to the incident of a train crash, slicing and chopping at the carriages with their slick karate moves.

Sit back in your rocking chair as the TOTP2-style psychedelic light filters drip across the inside of your eyelids. “When I saw you there/The neon strobes were bright/It was hard to keep on dancing” Please Don’t Take Him Back will flood the dancefloor in the twinkling starburst bloodbath of neon strobes, as you find yourself surrounded by a school of digital ping-pong bleeps.

Rather than shoving the old Bear costume in a barricaded closet – using lamps, sofas, a bookshelf and a table to conceal their old sound and desperately lunge for the bright lights of the mainstream – they rip it up and stitch it back together again, without sacrificing their unhinged nature.

“When Will I Be Queen?” sees the Bears take their new suit out for a spin, to the neurotic haze of a freaky fashion show for Bizarre magazine. It darts between bedrock funky elasticity, piled atop with a tower of skyscraper synths that wobble from epic ’70s sci-fi to bedroom digitalism to a psychotic Blondie strut through Tiga’s cluttered laboratory: mountains of filthy, lustful anguish-fuelled synthesizers, pots of glitter, sequin dresses and plastic animal party masks.

Tentacles is a stand out track, with the devilishly menacing march of Franz Ferdinand and a dash of Art Brut; Giant Archaeopteryx, a ritual in the hearts of the forest, which chews ravenously through sound palettes and fuzzy guitars; and Kwaa Kwaa, concealing a rainbow grenade of a chorus, which blossoms into a gloriously lush and unkempt pop splatter – yet with crawling ghouls and monsters rustling in the bushes.

“This is a new beginning for us,” Iain Ross explains. “It was terribly sad to lose the old Bearsuit members (Cerian, Matt and Richard), but when Charlene and Joe joined, I think they brought out the heaviness and the pop sensibilities in us.”

The train has arrived at the platform: if you’ve been missing out on the party, now is the perfect opportunity to jump onboard. Bearsuit will grab you by the wrist, and guide you through the twists and turns of their mystical wonderland that is The Phantom Forest – a compelling journey from start to finish.

Watch the video for their upcoming single Train Wreck – out Dec 2010

‘The Phantom Forest’ is due for release Feb/Mar 2011 on Fortuna Pop!
http://www.myspace.com/bearsuit

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