Bearfoot Beware - 'Sea Magnolia' Album Review

Tracklist:

1. Point Scorer

2. Without A Shot Fired

3. Knots In The Rope

4. Philistines

5. Punk Is Violence

6. No Wisdom

7. Future Beaut

8. Check

9. Sea Magnolia

Leeds trio Bearfoot Beware are back with their second album ”Sea Magnolia”, which is released in March and described as “A much more heavy hitting release that doesn’t feel the need to overcomplicate for the sake of egos.”

Well, the first thing to note about the album is that it is, as my Nan would say, “A bit shouty.” This may, of course, be down to the genres occupied by the band, which are listed as Alternative, Math Rock and Post Hardcore but for the casual listener “Point Scorer” (the albums opening track) is a bit of an awakening.

On first listening, it kind of reminded me of when Mistress did Thrash Metal versions of Christmas carols on Never Mind The Buzzcocks…although not as heavy as Thrash, it had that same initial response of “Nope…where’s the off switch?”

Further listens however, reveal some awesome musicianship from messers Bradley, Vowden and Osborne and the tunes are all brilliant…it’s the vocal delivery that I just can’t get comfortable with. Now I’m sure some people are quite happy being shouted at (in fact I’m reliably informed there are whole websites dedicatedto such practices) but I’m not one of them. And so I find myself like some sort of middle aged, post transition Veruca Salt…wanting it all (this quality of tune and vocals I can live with) and being really quite petulant knowing I can’t.

Favourite songs? Well, if I was being nasty I would say “Future Beaut” because it’s less that 2 minutes long! However, I have to say that “Check “ is the best song on the album…much, much less shouty than the others and what a difference it makes…I’ll keep that one on my main playlist.

It’s really quite difficult to do a neat “Hey kids, go buy this groovy record” or “Avoid like the plague” kind of summary on this record…it’s not for me but that’s not to say it’s a bad record…even I recognise the brilliant musicians that Bearfoot Beware are. If you are of the Alternative/Math Rock/Post Hardcore persuasion, I suspect you might really like this…a lot.