Bear Hands @ Siren

Bear Hands was a pleasant surprise – musically. On stage they were nothing special, but certainly sounded nice. They were kind of funny to look at, as the lead guitarist, who actually added the necessary atmosphere to fill out the sound and bring together some of the dreamy, ambient parts of the songs, was soooo disinterested. I got bored watching him act bored. So it goes, I guess.

But the bashing stops there, because I enjoyed what I heard. And it’s hard to rag on a band when the music sounds good. They were one of the few performers at Siren to sound cohesive enough on stage where I could actually make out the subtleties of the arrangements and structure. It’s not like Bear Hands are treading new territory here – they sounded fairly standard for a pop/rock group, but they did layer their sound very nicely and played well off of each other. Definitely good chemistry, which was a plus, helping to offset the lack of a “wow” factor. After Siren it’s easy to forget that you don’t (…necessarily) need to induce mosh pits or to crowd surf on bass drums to be heard.

Bear Hands -“Bad Blood” [MP3]

More photos after the jump. (this is the last of our Siren reviews – hope you enjoyed ’em)

[All photos by James B. Hale/Knox Road from Siren Music Festival]