The 2 Bears – Be Strong Album Review

Joe Goddard’s original Hot Chip transcended the dance/indie barrier by having a ‘Shoreditch’ cool element to go with their incessantly catchy songs, and now Goddard and new dance-partner Raf Rundell have done it again with The 2 Bears.

Obviously influenced by the Chicago house-scene of the late 90’s, ‘Be Strong’ is 12 tracks that capture much of the feel good attitude that permeates through a good night out. 2 Bears have managed to create an album that instantly snaps you to the weekend.

The album is mostly fun, early on in the album we get the jovial ‘Bear Hug‘, and a couple of tracks later, the chilled out ‘Warm & Easy’, both with foot-tappingly good melodies and lyrics that will make you smile the first time you hear them, and get excited that they’re coming up on repeat listens: “It gets lonely in the woods, but right now I’m here in the hood, let’s have a Bear Hug.”

That’s not to say that they don’t exhibit a serious side with a couple of the later tracks; ‘Time In Mind’s jaunty stylings belying the fact that “time in mind should be easy to do” and offering a nice interpretation of sub-consciousness, while ‘Increase Your Faith’s eerie synths tell us that “They haven’t got a pill to increase your faith…your confidence”; it’s the come-down after the buoyant mood beforehand. Luckily, there’s another few tracks to go before the digital needle stops playing, and by the end, your mood will be sufficiently replenished, and you’ll be eager to give it another go.

We’ve found ourselves listening to this much more than we anticipated; it’s an album that works with its simplicity.
Stand-out tracks are hard to choose, but lead single ‘Work’, (“We gotta work / for each other / for the future”) the aforementioned ‘Warm & Easy’, ‘Take a Look Around’, and the closing track ‘Church’, (a classic builder of a feel-good song, with steel drums!) are ones to listen out for.

Click HERE Check out the live interview with the 2 Bears on the new BBM Live Dance Music Podcast with So Called Scumbags

Click HERE to read the full interview with the 2 Bears