Hello, everyone!
Time for another artist profile!
This past Labor Day weekend, I traveled to Troy, Ohio to attend one of Mumford & Sons’ Gentlemen of the Road stopover festivals for two days of music and fun. It was my second time seeing Mumford & Sons, and I got to see some other pretty incredible artists, including Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Old Crow Medicine Show, Half Moon Run, Willy Mason, and The Vaccines, for the first time. And then I attended my third Mumford & Sons concert in Milwaukee, Wisconsin a few days later. It was a lot of Mumford in a very short span of time, but the exhaustion and the little time I had to bounce back between concerts was well worth it.
One of the bands that tagged along for both shows, Bear’s Den, is my featured artist this month. I had been listening to Bear’s Den before seeing them live this month and had grown to like them quite a bit, but seeing them live made me like them even more and made me wonder why I have only just now decided to share them with you all.
Bear’s Den is a folk trio from London that formed fairly recently (I want to say in 2012), composed of lead vocalist/guitarist Andrew Davie, banjoist/guitarist Joey Haynes, and drummer/bassist/guitarist Kevin Jones. The personal, emotional nature of their songwriting and their harmonies are reminiscent of those of Mumford & Sons, and the five tracks of their second EP, Agape (which can be purchased on iTunes, Amazon, and Bear’s Den’s Music Glue page), reflect the all-encompassing, unconditional, and self-sacrificing type of love that the EP is named for. The title track speaks of the fear of living without love (“Agape, please don’t dissipate…For I’m so scared of losing you and I don’t know what I can do about it”). The delicately beautiful “Isaac” seems to be written from the perspective of the biblical Abraham about his son of the same name (“Isaac, I have never seen you look so afraid with your head pressed so hard against the stone”) and contains a pledge of devotion (“I’m gonna give all my love to you”). And the haunting “Mother” tells a story of a family with an abusive father (“She crawls to her room and she screams her hardest/lets the voices inside her head bleed into one./She hears his footsteps alone in the darkness/she closes her eyes and prays for her son.”).
Though Agape is available for purchase on several sites, Bear’s Den’s first EP, Pompeii, can only be purchased at their live shows. If you’re willing to go to one of their shows, it’s a must-buy. It has a different sound than their second EP; it sounds a bit less polished and contains more electric guitar than Agape, but it’s a gem. The title track is especially gorgeous and touching, as it weaves imagery from the famous Pompeii eruption (“You took me walking through the town, showed me the statues underground/You said ‘Just don’t they look at peace? Sometimes I wish that was me’”) with a tale of loss (“I was too young to understand the flowers sleeping in her hands”).
And hey, if you do go see Bear’s Den live and buy one or both of their EPs, they’ll even sign your purchases and take a picture with you. Nice lads, they are!
Bear’s Den just finished their U.S. tour with Mumford & Sons, but the rest of their 2013 is still packed with shows. They are now touring the U.S. in support of Daughter and will next tour Australia with Matt Corby before doing a headline tour in Europe. Be sure to check their Music Glue website linked above to see if they’re coming near you!
Live, Love, Learn,
Erin &