Whilst co-presenting the fortnightly Moving Tone News show on Cambridge’s 209radio, I mentioned that one of the joys of dealing with local music was that you could make a genuine discovery – something surprising and amazing that had as yet been little heard, but which had the potential for great things. Straw Bear is just such a discovery.

Here’s how it happened. It was while researching pictures for a whole clutch of local and regional bands that I first stumbled upon the Ely band’s MySpace page. Two things struck me. First, they had Talking Heads at the top of their list of influences. Second, what was issuing from my computer’s speakers (courtesy of the MySpace mp3 player) was something fantastically rich and strange. The track was Russia! – a three minute epic teling the curiously nostalgic tale of a young English boy’s obsession with all things Soviet. The Talking Heads influence was certainly evident in the general air of strangeness (which, to my mind, can only be a good thing), and particularly in the dreamlike, repeated refrain between verses. The lyrics had a witty, eccentric edge to them, too, delivered with the kind of neurotic urgency of which David Byrne would have been proud. But, inevitable though it is, this ‘sounds like’ talk unfairly diminishes them. What really impresses as the raucous and slightly crazed chorus of Russia! kicks in (and kick it does) is that they have a sound all their own.

And this is the point. They have a sound. At the risk of making a sweeping generalisation, it’s rare for a young, local band to have a distinct and convincing studio sound – for very simple reasons. Studio time costs money. Playing live makes money (just). Young bands don’t have much money, so they play live a lot and spend little time in the studio, the typical result being that they develop a great live sound which is rarely, if ever, captured in their first recordings. Straw Bear, however, have a recorded sound that can stand with the best of them: full, rounded, snappy, tight, confident and quirky, without a hint of self-consciousness. This is rare indeed.

Within minutes, I was e-mailing the band, begging to review the album (begging was not strictly necessary, but it all adds to the story). The question was, how would a whole album shape up?

Pretty well, actually. It turns out three minutes really is an epic in the short, sharp world of Straw Bear – most songs on the album are closer to two, and a couple are wrapped up in a minute and a half. Yet still they manage to pack in infectious tunes, catchy riffs, wry lyrics, verse, chorus and a middle eight (have a listen to Interview Song on their MySpace page if you don’t believe me). Strange, yes. But also rich – wonderfully rich. What others need a pint glass to achieve, Straw Bear do in a teaspoonful. Even where the treatment is sparse, there’s always something going in these tracks. There’s the joyous strangeness of the lyrics, of course (‘Who-who are you? Tell me who you really are / A stetson, a trilby or a panama?’), but they also seem to love sounds for their own sake, in the manner of Byrne or Brian Eno. And ideas, lots of ideas. While the songs are certainly of a piece, this gives each a distinctiveness of its own: the sleazy, decadent synth-fuelled swagger of Swingjugend; the psychotically frenetic, jangly guitar-driven edge of Black List; the deceptively naive melody and dark undertones of The Congregation; the soaring chorus of Love Song; the (relatively) straight indie, pop-rock of Apple Dragon.

Sometimes this can take you in entirely unexpected directions. Infant Terrible is bizarrely reminiscent of early Genesis – if Genesis had embraced Glam Rock. In The Soil (a monster of a track, weighing in at a mighty four minutes) Straw Bear seem to be in Radiohead territory – except that Ian Ray’s superbly idiosyncratic vocals steer things on a completely different course. Hovering somewhere between David Byrne and Bill Nelson, there’s a distinct streak of eccentricity and resolute Englishness to them, which at times evokes the Bonzo’s Vivian Stanshall (never a bad thing). While Tombola sails dangerously close to pure Talking Heads worship, it’s Ray’s vocals that pull it back from the brink.

If any songs struggle to find a place, it’s two of the sparser, slower numbers – Healing Bed and Your Thinking Face. These are still good songs, but (despite the nicely gratuitous use of a kazoo) seem to lack the richness and distinctiveness of treatment so evident elsewhere. Nevertheless, as I am so keen on saying in reviews ‘these are minor quibbles’. Quite simply, this is my front runner for album of the year. And I don’t mean local album, either. I’m talking any album, by any artist. With that in mind, I’d like to make a final, personal and entirely selfish plea to the band: Don’t split up. Don’t give up. Do more. Do even better.

Will Straw Bear find that wider recognition? Only time will tell. But they certainly deserve it.

Writer: Toby Venables

**STOP PRESS** - Straw Bear have just informed us they will give a FREE copy of their new album to any interested MTN reader. All you have to do is e-mail a request to: thestrawbear@thestrawbear.com including your name and address and they will put a copy in the post. While stocks last!

www.myspace.com/strawbear

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