Search - 14 Iced Bears :: In the Beginning

Great comp of obscure band from the shoegazer era

T. Watada | la, ca | 11/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This band never got much notice in it's lifetime, so it's no wonder no one knows of them now, but it's one of the great shames of the late 80s/early 90s british indie scene (another one is Loop-who remembers them? I do!) Contemporaries of bands like My Bloody Valentine, these Brightoners made great psychadelic laden pop that still stands up to this day. This compilation covers a lot of their singles and best tracks. Awash in obscurity, I believe they disbanded because of lack of momentum. A brief footnote in that era's British indie music, they were a unhearalded band that should have achieved much wider acclaim than they did."

Proto-shoegazer British indie rock from the later 80s

John L Murphy | Los Angeles | 12/26/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Generous perhaps to a fault, this gathers the early songs of this obscure (to me) English band from the proto-shoegazer era. The songs should appeal to admirers of the later 80s indie sound. The C-60 (or was it 90?) fad may have caught up these men in its hype. The band does share similarities with the shambling, low-key, high-intensity approach of what would have been the British pop-postpunk underground around twenty years ago. The best songs, Train Song and Balloon Song (the former I do not think is the Bert Jansch song he did with Pentangle!; the latter was covered by Slumberland label stars The Aislers Set on their "The Last Match"), capture the soaring yet humble combination of noisy guitar and determinedly garage-like back-up, topped with earnest, plaintive (but not annoying) vocals.



The album does lag if only due to its generous inclusion of tracks from radio sessions, and this accounts both for repetition of some songs and a tendency as it goes on to sound samey and droney. Its intriguing to place 14 Iced Bears alongside Ride, for instance, and wonder why one band 'made it' and the other remained on the sidelines, for the talent on the best tracks is evident. Despite its unevenness, it's good to have a label that crams its disc full of potential delights. A bit much for one sitting due to its rather insistently, steadily pitched consistency, but it does shine enough highlights to make it a part of a British late-80s collection. This deserves its place on the Slumberland roster, where other fine bands from this era that eschewed glitz and pretension in favor of honest indie 'anti-rock' beckon."