Reviews

Polar Bear Club. Music aficionados have likely heard the name. It is hard not to. This New York-based band created a ridiculous amount of hype with their debut EP, The Redder the Better. And critics be damned if they were not going to live up to almost every bit of it with the debut full-length, Sometimes Things Just Disappear.

In 10 tracks in just under 40 minutes, Polar Bear Club makes only one glaring mistake throughout the whole affair and that is the opening track, "Eat Dinner, Bury the Dog, and Run," or rather its placement. Polar Bear Club's Jimmy Stadt delivers gruff hardcore vocals a la Rise Against's Tim McIlrath or A Wilhelm Scream's Nuno Pereira. But rather than belt the lyrics out faster than a bat out of hell over quick four-four time, Polar Bear Club slows down the pace in favor of melody, using space to spread out the sound and switching up time signatures and dynamics when necessary. It is indie, it is punk, it is hardcore and it is so much more.

It is an extremely well-crafted effort, but that first track seems a sore thumb after repeated listens. "Eat Dinner, Bury the Dog, and Run" churns at such a slow pace with airy indie melodies during portions that it gets the album off to the wrong start. It is not that the band does a bad job with slow tunes-"Burned Out in a Jar" is great-but it is slow in the wrong spot for the album.

From there on out, however, Sometimes Things Just Disappear is purely amazing all the way through to the last track, "Convinced I'm Wrong," which features a number of powerful dramatic pauses. Every track offers something special, including the vocal delivery of "The Bug Parade," the incredible guitar riffs of "Tired" and the driving drum beat of "Heart Attack at Thirty."

Polar Bear Club has found an original voice with a genre-bending mixture and, despite a slow start, has crafted one of the best albums so far this year.