Bear - III

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Modern Metal genres are always suffering from a type of middle age crisis: as they come near to complete (or pass) their 10 years of life, the great number of bands playing this same style is really a tsunami! The bad part of this tsunami is that the style becomes boring. It’s because a great part of the bands are not offering something different from what is already done by others, and to best names such as KILLSWITH ENGAGE, SHADOWS FALL, AS I LAY DYING and DEAD BY APRIL is not an easy task, because they came earlier, created their own musical way. Although the Belgian quartet BEAR is really talented, on “III” they show that they need to put more original effort in their work.

It’s just the old and good Metalcore, with that technical influence from Djent Metal and some New Metal elements. But this same formula was used many times before this album was released. It’s nothing new at all, and to be honest, their songs remind us of countless bands we heard before. They aren’t bad, but they’re like many others, and technical playing doesn’t make the difference.

“III” presents a very good sound quality. The producers of the album (the quartet itself along with Stef Exelmans) showed that he really did his best, balancing perfectly the aggressiveness and melodic lines into a coherent form of music. The instrumental tunes are in good shape, the vocals as well, so it sounds aggressive and bitter, but with a very good level of clarity. But even with all these factors at their side, musically they need to work a lot to become different from many other bands we know. The thundering “Blackpool”, the very catchy parts of “Masks” (this song is truly good, with fine work from guitars and very good contrast between harsh and clean voices), the technical “Knives are Easy” (adorned with some Hardcore influences), the oppressive rhythmic parts created by bass guitar and drums on “The Oath”, the aggressive and catchy melodic lines of “Raw”, the slower parts of “Adjust.Adapt” are proof that they are a talented band, but some improvements must be done.

BEAR is a good name for the future, but for now, “III” is a good example of how a band can become disturbed by the flood of a Metal style.

Originality: 5
Songwriting: 6
Memorability: 6
Production: 8