Last Lungs – Look At That Old Grizzly Bear
Written By: Ahti on October 25, 2010
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During last few years we have seen a great number of new bands step in to the post-rock scene. Most of relatively young, still in their teens or in early twentys. Probably the most interesting thing about the situation seems to be that they don’t follow the footsteps of their ancestors, instead they rearranged the playgrounds and noticed new possibilites inside the genre and created a very new and fresh pop sounding way to play instrumental music. Somehow they all simply walked into the community (post-rock) which was thought to be elite and rough alternative form of art music, but more than that, they did it with a certain attitude and arrogance. As Markus, the bassist of Moonlit Sailor, one of the leading forces of the generation, told to me couple of years back: “We are a post-rock band, but we don’t listen to post-rock”. Which might be the case conserning the upcoming brigades of pop instrumental bands.But the case of Last Lungs debute release “Look At That Old Grizzly Bear” isn’t anything out of the ordinary either, consisting of five friends from UK who are greatly influenced by pop-punk in their youth. Just as pop(-punk), the album holds a very clean and pure sound, with the emphasis on melodic expression and guitar graft. Comparing Last Lungs mixture of pop and post-rock to older instrumental rock music, it has basically no dissonance, complexed rhythms or folk instrumentations, which were very common in the scene earlier. On the contrary, the band has a very standard pop/ rock consistency. As if I’m listening to pop without words, it’s so simple that it actually works. The most important thing seems to be to experience the beauty of music and accentuate the texture and atmoshpere. “Look At That Old Grizzly Bear” is more than appropriate to bridge these two, esthetics of ambient and principles of pop and rock. The album leaves the listener with a bit more thoughtful note, offering a breathtaking group-vocal performance which plays with elegance and and style. Score: 8/10
