Hamburg, Germany is the city where The Beatles cut their teeth in the early 1960′s and has, thus, become somewhat of a mythical place in the history of rock music. So even though that isn’t the context that it’s presented in here on Polar Bear Club’s latest, Chasing Hamburg, it almost makes sense that PBC (or any other touring band) would be “chasing Hamburg.”
Chasing Hamburg is the second full-length from Rochester, New York’s Polar Bear Club, and an album that I was greatly anticipating after being more than impressed by their 2008 debut Sometimes Things Just Disappear. The album opens with what might be the heaviest song the band has recorded (“See The Wind”) but also features their most sparse and sweetest (“Drifting Thing”). The other eight songs on Chasing Hamburg bounce around between those two points offering up a wide-ranging expanse of melodic post-hardcore punk that brings to mind the likes of Hot Water Music, Small Brown Bike, and Rise Against. That’s good company to keep.
This isn’t (however) the typical hardcore you might expect to find released on a label like Bridge Nine. Chasing Hamburg is a powerful album that is full of dense guitar riffs and deft melodic leads; energetic start-stop rhythms and song structures that just seem unexpected. Vocalist Jimmy Stadt effortlessly moves from gruff growling tones to a smoother singing voice whenever the music calls for it which adds another layer to the album. The band does a balancing act that combines the intensity of hard-hitting angular riffs and their songwriting’s melodic accessibility into a dynamic and seemingly ever-changing barrage of awesome.
The entire album seems to play incredibly well as a cohesive whole with ups and downs and plenty of dynamic changes as Polar Bear Club moves in and out of catchy choruses and muscular head-nodding grooves. It’s the thinking man’s melodic punk or (perhaps) dude-core/bro-punk for guys that are a bit more in touch with their feelings. In other words, this is a more “mature” sounding hardcore album than what might appear to your average teenager. Even if I say that just because I’m old and jaded, just know that Chasing Hamburg is one of my favorite albums of 2009.
MP3:
Polar Bear Club - Living Saints
Polar Bear Club - Boxes
This guy’s voice just isn’t cut out for the style he is trying to pull off. He doesn’t have a gruff voice at all, and the way he annunciates words is just cringe inducing.
I agree 100% with this review. I was given a copy of it a few weeks back and it quickly became one of my favorite albums this year.