David Goodman was the bassist in the Boston band Lockgroove who was taken over and replaced by Dave Doom, traversed the northeast, gathering sounds and, unlike every academic sound gathering world traveler, has woven a fun and diverse pop/post-pop album instead of some boring bit of stuffy nonsense. Munchy the Bear is one of the most fresh and original debut albums I've ever heard.
For an album that has been years in the making, Munchy the Bear wastes no time launching with three glorious songs. The happy singalong tune of "Never Live Forever" is something which could easily make any Caribou/Manitoba fan wet: it's infectious, has a moderate amount of unconventional sampling, and is heavy on the drums. Dave Doom flexes his multi-instrumental talented muscles with dulcimer playing on "All the Experiences," a somewhat tribute to George Harrison, while groovy breakbeat drums and cut up melodies come in on the instrumental "Stick Pots and the Bloody Beats," providing pulse to a fantastic echoing guitar riff.
One of the neat things about this record is in such a tiny digipack inlet, Doom has managed to give props to the people and places and thoughts that shaped ach song on the record, providing a backstory to the dense audio tapestry. He's not just giving a tracklist of somewhat obscure song titles of inside jokes.
The next few tunes remind me of the definition of "chimp rock": rock music categorically void of aspirations of pop stardom; but it hardly sounds like anything Sebadoh or The Shaggs would dream up. Doom detunes guitars, samples kids songs, and sings distorted through megaphones, but he keeps things consistently on the beat, matching them with peppy drums and happy melodies, bringing in friends to sing, play, and play. Identified instruments include bajo, piano, organs, harp, bongos, and even vocals sung into cell phone voice mail. An array of friends has even been captured in the cover, which, at first seems pretty harmless but a closer look at weapons in peoples' hands like an axe, machetes, and a shovel suggest a cast of a teenage summer camp horror flick.
Mellower moments come towards the end of the recording, interspersed with a few transitionary type bits under 60 seconds. "Beauty and Addiction" is a subdued song with subtle drums, melodica sounds, and somewhat odd samples of old films talking about nuclear war, "A Cult Following" features a chorus of people and a snappy sax, and the 10+ minute closer "Never Want to Leave" is like a roadside lullaby, as the waves recorded sound dangerously close to traffic.
With such a strong record like this finally surfacing after five years from its inception, it leads me to wonder how on earth Dave Doom will pull off anything else in the foreseeable future, but thankfully something like this is one of those records that has the potential to catch on big, give it time.
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