MP3: The Bear Quartet - Grammar
It's the last Saturday of 2007, hence the last Bear Quartet post I'll do until their next album comes out. I asked Mattias Alkberg if he would contribute something this week, but he politely declined noting that it's a bit awkward to write about his own band like that, though quite flattering. Can't argue with that, so instead I've roped in Jim Kelly from Parasol once again. His pick: "Grammar" from 2003's "Angry brigade". He writes:
"Angry brigade" was The Bear Quartet's last true guitar-bass-n-drums rock/pop record, albeit sprinkled with inklings of the electro-tempest spawned on successive albums. Hot on the heels of the album's two singles, "Axe me don't ask me" and "All my life", the swaggering, cocksure, Clash-inspired "Grammar" is "Angry brigade"'s centerpiece, a bridge between the batch of luminous proto-popsongs in one hand and the sampledelic electro-punk squirming in the other. "Grammar" was a big tough rock song with big tough guitars, a song about righteous school-age badassess planning an assault on the neighborhood pedophile. But while the narrator and pals miss their chance, they hope that Hell awaits this person in some form. With sentiments like this, and mortality a common motif, "Angry brigade" ended up being the band's fiercest and most tightly-wound record since "Moby Dick", incorporating both the band's sublime pop sophistication and madcap punk/noise roots.
Download below, as always. As for next year's special Saturday post focus - wait and see!
The Bear Quartet - Grammar