MINUS THE BEAR

A little less math + a little more groove =  maximum “Minus-the-Bear-ness”

When Minus the Bear guitarist Dave Knudson listens back to his band’s 2007 album Planet of Ice, he hears a complex, “proggy” deviation from the Seattle quintet’s more dance-oriented early material. “We were going for it,” Knudson says—“it” being a level of precise, hyper-clever riffing and arranging that, over the last decade, has earned the group its “math rock” label.

In crafting the new follow-up, OMNI, Minus the Bear opted to holster its protractors and play up the pop side of its music once again. “I don’t know if it was totally conscious, but I think we realized the first few records had a big four-on-the-floor dance vibe to them, and we had gone away from that,” Knudson says. “For this record, we wanted to write songs that weren’t quite as complex, but that still maintained their Minus-the-Bear-ness.”

While the songs on OMNI remain shifty and intricate, mixing glistening guitars and glassy synths, they’re also funky and, thanks to singer Jake Snider’s sometimes libidinous lyrics, more than a little sexy. “I think the songs have more of a groove to them,” says Knudson. “They aren’t simple by any means, but the way they’re structured, the riffs that they’re based on, allow for more playfulness than we’ve had in the past.”

The songs were built from Knudson’s demos, but his bandmates—Snider, drummer Erin Tate, keyboardist Alex Rose and bassist Cory Murchy—helped to shape each track. “My Time” is a bona fide block-party banger, its monster lead riff overshadowing the fidgety drum patterns and frilly instrumental fills. On “Secret Country,” the group pairs a beefy Foreigner guitar lick with a spacious Police groove. “Everyone in the band has adapted to playing with one another and learning how to fill in little holes here and there,” Knudson says. “If there’s a part that’s more relaxed and mellow, it might be a good spot for a keyboard to come in and do a melody.”

Credit producer Joe Chiccarelli, who has worked with everyone from Kajagoogoo to the White Stripes, for pushing the musicians to play live rather than overdub parts separately. The result is a punchier and more direct sound that nonetheless manages to continue yielding new discoveries the more the album is heard. “The layers reveal themselves and you’re able to focus on one particular layer of the music, or one part you didn’t hear out of the box,” says Knudson. “Upon repeated listening, you might think, ‘I’ve never heard that thing before.’”

–Kenneth Partridge

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