Minus The Bear - Memphis & 53rd

Menos el Oso, the newest album from Seattle's prolific Minus The Bear is destined to live in the ears of indie lovers for quite some time. At the album's core is a driving, possessive rhythm that rarely lets up through the album's 11 songs. There is nothing dry or overlooked in indie rock anthems like "Pachuca Sunrise", no motion left unswayed in the snowy ballad "Hooray", and no desperation more immediate than the couple, racing their way to refuge through the desert in my selection from the album, "Memphis & 53rd". Some indie rock bands are focused so entirely on their collective need to reach some kind of enlightenment in the label "indie rock" that they fail to produce music worth remembering. None lack the complete artifice of such overtures or produce such instantly loveable, gracious, emotionally complete and deliberate sounds as Minus The Bear has with Menos el Oso. Indie rock fans, I cannot wait for you to hear this album.