HIMALAYAN BEAR - HARD TIMES (LP)

Himalayan Bear Hard Times on LP

Hard Times, the first U.S. release and third overall album from Victoria , B.C.'s Himalayan Bear, exhibits an indisputable level of ingenuity, a fetish for reverb and a voice that is as delicate as it is potent. Lead singer Ryan Beattie many be best known as the front man of Chet or the guitarist of Frog Eyes, but he started making records in his early teens and has amassed a large catalog over the nearly two decades since. It's his solo project Himalayan Bear which best shows his inimitable talent and remarkable voice, and Hard Times is his finest effort to date.

The listener is given full allowance to bear witness to sounds that may resemble the slow jubilation of a lazy tropical contentment or a foreboding acceptance of a hypothermic state where the brain tells a freezing body that everything is just fine. This is the true power of Beattie's words and arrangements, his merits lie solely in his restraint, wavering on a threshold that can lift the heart one minute only to break it the next. Hard Times is a stunning album, a modern take on the old crooners of the '50s, a strange blue light cast on records played in the dark, a blood stain on a poodle skirt, evocative but clearly not nostalgic.

Himalayan Bear Hard Times Track Listing:

1.  Hard Times
2.  The Caballo
3.  How Could Death Contend?
4.  Half Wit Son
5.  Peace River
6.  Only Dreams Let Me Hold You
7.  Man of Fire