There's a lot of arrogance that floats around the music world, from the self-aggrandized success stories told through the eyes of pop-rappers to the sheer self-belief in the glory and romance of what the neo-punk world is doing. For sheer bombasticism, however, the award surely has to go to the popular-indie set. Full of ignoramuses strutting around and playing songs that sound a few years out-of-date seems the order of the day. Where haughtiness, superciliousness, and sheer brazenness outweigh any genuine charisma or talent and where the scene is so full of bands that seem totally oblivious to the existence of the bands that they sound like that no one realizes that they are all claiming the same thing - that somehow, they are original.
Take Golden Bear, for example. They have the awareness of mind to claim that they don't hold the patent on "unironic, super-melodic, over-the-top indie rock." With the pontification of, "you might find yourself making that claim for them," however, that awareness of mind just advances the egoism and spectacle with which Golden Bear is delivered. Despite the fact that the album sounds like slabs of every indie band from both sides of the pond to make it big in the past decade or so.
"Wonderful" sounds like the toned down parts of Free All Angels-era Ash with some horns inexplicably played over the top. "Silent Prayer" is a mash up of Bowie with some confused rhythms akin to Modest Mouse. "Victory is Ours" carries all the hallmarks of a local indie band trying to rock out, but just ends up sounding like The Libertines. Despite all pretensions about the indie scene, it isn't all bad, though. "Santa Rosa" begins sounding like Different Class-era Pulp fused with good pop fundamentals that carries through the verses but is let down by the choruses that disappear into more Libertines. "The Saddest Songs" stays just the right side of country kitsch with a sprinkling of some Waylon Jennings in the mix and "Lady Soul", an apex of sorts with beefed up guitar layers, trumpets and downtrodden, almost plaintive melodies certainly shows promise.
Golden Bear leaves conflicting feelings. Through its mish-mash of better influences and stark similarities to most of what's floating around, it has its moments of optimism. But mixing country pedal steel guitars, some good melodies and a couple of great songs into a generically pop-indie mould is never really the way to go. There is promise in the midst of an album that presents itself with too much pomp and pageantry, typical of an indie scene that too often fails to see what is going on around itself. For a debut album in a world where indie is selling well, Golden Bear is a decent effort. Against the backdrop of much more interesting scenes and sounds, it is somehow lacking in substance and heart and ultimately, finds itself fading away.
