{"id":2940,"date":"2011-08-02T00:53:40","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T07:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=2940"},"modified":"2011-08-02T01:20:47","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T08:20:47","slug":"minus-the-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/minus-the-bear\/","title":{"rendered":"MINUS THE BEAR"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

MINUS THE BEAR<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A little less math + a little more groove =\u00a0 maximum \u201cMinus-the-Bear-ness\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

When Minus the Bear guitarist Dave Knudson listens back to his band\u2019s 2007 album Planet of Ice<\/em>, he hears a complex, \u201cproggy\u201d deviation from the Seattle quintet\u2019s more dance-oriented early material. \u201cWe were going for it,\u201d Knudson says\u2014\u201cit\u201d being a level of precise, hyper-clever riffing and arranging that, over the last decade, has earned the group its \u201cmath rock\u201d label.<\/p>\n

In crafting the new follow-up, OMNI<\/em>, Minus the Bear opted to holster its protractors and play up the pop side of its music once again. \u201cI don\u2019t 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,\u201d Knudson says. \u201cFor this record, we wanted to write songs that weren\u2019t quite as complex, but that still maintained their Minus-the-Bear-ness.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the songs on OMNI<\/em> remain shifty and intricate, mixing glistening guitars and glassy synths, they\u2019re also funky and, thanks to singer Jake Snider\u2019s sometimes libidinous lyrics, more than a little sexy. \u201cI think the songs have more of a groove to them,\u201d says Knudson. \u201cThey aren\u2019t simple by any means, but the way they\u2019re structured, the riffs that they\u2019re based on, allow for more playfulness than we\u2019ve had in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

The songs were built from Knudson\u2019s demos, but his bandmates\u2014Snider, drummer Erin Tate, keyboardist Alex Rose and bassist Cory Murchy\u2014helped to shape each track. \u201cMy Time\u201d is a bona fide block-party banger, its monster lead riff overshadowing the fidgety drum patterns and frilly instrumental fills. On \u201cSecret Country,\u201d the group pairs a beefy Foreigner guitar lick with a spacious Police groove. \u201cEveryone in the band has adapted to playing with one another and learning how to fill in little holes here and there,\u201d Knudson says. \u201cIf there\u2019s a part that\u2019s more relaxed and mellow, it might be a good spot for a keyboard to come in and do a melody.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cThe layers reveal themselves and you\u2019re able to focus on one particular layer of the music, or one part you didn\u2019t hear out of the box,\u201d says Knudson. \u201cUpon repeated listening, you might think, \u2018I\u2019ve never heard that thing before.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Kenneth Partridge<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MINUS THE BEAR A little less math + a little more groove =\u00a0 maximum \u201cMinus-the-Bear-ness\u201d When Minus the Bear guitarist Dave Knudson listens back to his band\u2019s 2007 album Planet of Ice, he hears a complex, \u201cproggy\u201d deviation from the Seattle quintet\u2019s more dance-oriented early material. \u201cWe were going for it,\u201d Knudson says\u2014\u201cit\u201d being a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[70,2259,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2976,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2940\/revisions\/2976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}