- Solar Bears have a talent for blending together all kinds of ideas: the indifferent nostalgia of library music, British Isles mysticism, classic film scores and a sense of windswept grandeur. Their first album, 2010's She Was Coloured In, laid out the style nicely, which Supermigration followed with song-oriented music. After Irish duo John Kowalski and Rian Trench seemed to disappear altogether, they've re-emerged three years later with Advancement, moving from Planet Mu to Sunday Best.
Kowalski and Trench's core method hasn't changed, but everything is bigger and bolder this time. They still have a way with ambiguous melodies that never go where you expect and yet still feel familiar. On "Man Plus," Advancement's first major track, the duo show off a sound that's essentially post-rock filtered through Border Community records. Swirling synths, hard-edged basslines and pounding drums lash like a storm, before quickly receding and leaving behind the eerie calm of a ravaged disaster zone. Advancement is said to have been inspired by the "widespread decay of the natural world" (it includes recordings of phenomena like volcanoes)—appropriately, each track feels like a self-contained natural disaster.
The album is so unapologetically epic that it verges on formulaic: a minute or so of build-up, a stirring climax and then a barely-there outro describes most of these tracks. But there are some slight differences in approach. "Gravity Calling" whirls around until it's a tornado of haunting chords and arpeggios; melodies billow on "Vanishing Downstream," thickening until they hit critical mass and quickly dissipate.
Kowalski and Trench get it absolutely right on "Age Atomic," a trip-hop-style track with deep, portentous melodies. It does Boards Of Canada's thing exceedingly well, and stands out as the best track on Advancement. Closer "Separate From The Arc" is another one that comes close, with the duo introducing electric guitars to further beef up their sound. The songs in between feel more tentative. On "Wild Flowers," the duo's standoffish quality makes it unclear what they're trying to get across, aside from yet another roaring climax.
Leading up to Advancement, Solar Bears shared a recording of their long-in-the-works live set. It's a fantastic hour that pulls together all their best qualities, new and old, into a piece music of that ebbs and flows with a nuanced narrative. That kind of storytelling is the missing ingredient on Advancement. This LP has the duo's best music; each track offers something to marvel at. But put them all together and it's like watching the world end 11 times in a row: what at first seems fearsome eventually turns mundane.
Tracklist01. Everything Set Right
02. Man Plus
03. Age Atomic
04. Vanishing Downstream
05. Scale
06. Persona
07. Wild Flowers
08. Gravity Calling
09. Everything Set Ablaze
10. Longer Life
11. Separate From The Arc