Bearsuit – 'Cat Spectacular!' (Fortuna Pop!) (reviewed Nov '04)
Recently described by Radio 1 DJ Rob ‘Da Bank’ as “an indie band from Norwich,” long-term Peel faves Bearsuit now exist in a strange musical climate. On a specialist late-night show, there is surely no need to use the word “indie” as if the term really had any meaning. It tells you nothing of the band except that they’re not incredibly well-known and, incidentally, on an independent label, which is the kind of description that should really cover most specialist radio programming. So how would I describe Bearsuit? As “indie-pop,” I suppose…
For more lazy music writing, take Bearsuit’s skinny, bespectacled singer Iain Ross and compare him with Graham Coxon. The former guitarist for those old chirpy chart stars Blur has become the easiest likeness for a certain type of male who plays guitar loud and can’t really sing too well, but gets away with it anyway. In another nerdy vein I have to say that Bearsuit’s other main singer Lisa Horton sounds uncannily like Sophie Aldred, former Doctor Who companion and children’s TV presenter. So what does that tell you about the music?
In terms of this debut album – released in May ’04 - not very much, but it’s got a lot of brass and keyboards in it. And handclaps, and recorders, and shouting. It’s the ramshackle result of much hard work and more good fun, twee in parts but prone to pop in your head. It’s the kind of sonic mayhem that’s hard to have on in the background – demented screams tend to take their toll on concentration– and at first it seems that the six-piece band are better at creating little moments than writing complete songs. So ‘Rodent Disco’ has a coda played entirely on cheesy keyboards, ‘Prove Katie Wrongg’ is misspelled stop-start doo-wop, but when everything crashes together it’s just great. Bearsuit give the impression that before they played dressing-up games they were the kind of kids who’d hug their teddy, then hit it repeatedly. They’re all over the shop, in other words, and it’s charming. ‘Itsuko Got Married’ is the track that stands out best compared to former singles like the deliriously catchy ‘Hey Charlie Hey Chuck’. But, of course, the whole thing’s a grower; with those semi-nonsensical lyrics (“I never! I never!”) and such crazy little tunes they’re the nearest thing to Fonda 500’s vision of Japanese-cool filtered through the small English cityscape – and thus end up sounding like nobody but themselves. Phew!
