Eliza and the Bear :: "It Gets Cold"

London five-piece, Eliza and the Bear chases the last glimmers of the pop-folk revival, injecting slices of bombast in the propulsive second movements of their creations. On latest single, "It Gets Cold", a plaintive guitar melody (Is there any other kind here?) and an infectious shout-along vocal combust into a final, triumphant iteration of the hook. The sound is big and the impact just as heavy-handed, the title lyric recast from meteorological observation - "It gets cold" - to symbolic paint brush: This place is an emotional ice palace. The final lyrics, "I kept walking 'til I find some light" are both moving and oblique, the kind of thing that ends up on a yearbook page, rife with all types of meaning if you seek to place it in these wide open spaces. It is also moving in the wordless fashion of stupidly ambitious pop, a dumb grin for the Prestige even when you know exactly what's coming.

Eliza and the Bear :: "Friends"

Fists raised against an obfuscated enemy, youth in the vagaries of revolt, Eliza and the Bear continue to craft their everything-is-happening-all-the-time pop on latest single, "Friends". The shout-along vocal refrain, "I've got friends, I've got family here," is both reassurance and battle cry, a protective outrage and a communal love in the same breath. The high-fret guitar works adds an element of drama as the band storms through a taut little arrangement, like being dropped into the second-half of a song from the first Arcade Fire record. Eliza and the Bear are poppier by a large margin, an ebullient horn continuing to announce their arrival, for it is only a matter of time before these songs seemingly about everything are seemingly everywhere.

Top 50 Songs of 2012 :: [40-31]

Welcome to our annual countdown of the 50 best songs of the calendar year. Songs must be from an EP, LP or demo released during 2012 and no band may appear twice. Today, we count down 40 to 31.

40. Howth - "Secret Goldmine"

Howth, all rich with horns and moral victories offered the outlines of a clandestine financial reserve on glittering single, "Secret Goldmine". A down-stroke guitar and drums cribbed from the National's catalog, "Secret Goldmine" was an unrequited love song, pitched at the last minute in hopes that the feeling would be mutual. "I'm thrilled to be your secret goldmine," was code for something else: unconditional and long form duets.


39. Maps and Atlases - "Fever"



In a year lacking big, bold rock songs, "Fever" did its best to roll the collective windows down and jam the collective accelerator pedal to the collective floor. It was supposed to be a transfiguration, a dreamed moment when the "Fever" passed and we were a more reasonable, less knee-jerk, rational species. Of course, the wailing guitars and slamming drums did little in this stead. "Fever" passed, tipping five minutes, but not without the break that comes in the middle of the night and at high temperature.


38. Donora - "And Then The Girls"

Donora, a Pittsburgh band with brash enough chops to make a name for themselves on the national scene, broke through in 2012 with a rigorous touring schedule and a singular moment on, "And Then The Girls". There was an argument that it was the year's best chorus, a refrain that drove over and over and over at the same idea: the title lyric in falsetto, four notes in play and all of them pleasing to the ear. It was maybe vapid, but so was Le Tigre, and "And Then The Girls" recalled a glossy riot grrl chic, girls in revolt but tastefully done.


37. Mirror Talk - "Choose Life"

For anyone waiting on the Future Islands record that never came in 2012, Mirror Talk was the baritone synth pop of which your dreams were made. Rooted in an oblique question - "Is it true love?" (and the comma placement or lack there of made all the difference) - "Choose Life" was the grinding, industrial jam to architect the last stages of a disaster. It was New Order for kids that knew New Order; it was Future Islands for people that already loved Future Islands.


36. Eliza and the Bear - "Brother's Boat"



The insistent opening guitar chords of "Brother's Boat" announced the arrival of Eliza and the Bear. It was post-Mumford pop, folk music with a touch of bombast, Edward Sharpe without all the commercial overtones. The final explosion, "Just let it go," was built for Beasts of the Southern Wild, an anthem for where the wild things actually were. 


35. Princeton - "Remembrance Of Things To Come"



Princeton does baroque pop better than anyone in indie rock and "Remembrance Of Things To Come" was no exception. It was all build and no payoff, strings frantically chasing a syncopated piano progression around a falsetto vocal. It was indie rock for a string quartet, things lost and forgotten or, as the band suggested, those memories yet to be made.


34. Oberhofer - "HEART"



No one went more for broke in indie rock this year than Oberhofer on "HEART". The all caps title was an overture, an introduction, to what was a twitchy and bombastic arrangement. The final movement, one of the best 90-seconds of music this year, was a crashing, tumbling conclusion to an already bold arrangement. It was about losing love, a shuddering coda to a brilliant bit of somber pop, Bradley Oberhofer cooing down the back of the disaster. 


33. Chairlift - "I Belong In Your Arms"



There is a world where Chairlift's "I Belong In Your Arms" was the single best song of 2012, a glittering bit of synth pop built for an 80s movie that was never made. Like The Chocolate War, the gags are slapstick and the allegories are hard to miss, Polachek and her crew making a crystalline arrangement that drives restlessly forward like a lost and improved Kate Bush single.


32. Lord Huron - "Time To Run"



Things fell apart internally in 2012, or at the very least, continued their pattern of utter instability. So pardon Lord Huron for looking outward on lead single, "Time To Run," a banging and clattering slice of world pop that served a bit of footnoted notice to bands like Local Natives and Vampire Weekend. The truth was out there, to be sure, a mixture of love and loss in the service of foreign interests and neocolonial ideas. 


31. Here We Go Magic - "How Do I Know"

In the era of the overly certain opinion, "How Do I Know" presented a pleasant countretemps. All about not knowing if she or he was the one, Here We Go Magic offered a bit of indecision - and this is completely absurd because "How Do I Know" is also so clearly a love song - in a time and place where everyone, everywhere, all the time, has a take.

Eliza and the Bear :: "Upon The North"

One of the most promising acts coming out of Britain today, Eliza and the Bear have released their triumphant new single, "Upon The North." It is in the school of their post-Edward Sharpe pop: big, expansive and Western-inspired Americana mixing with a deep British reverence and elegy. The bridge, a shouting and repeated lyric, "I spent summers away," is filled by organ chords, splashy cymbals and backing vocals, the same formula that makes their debut single, "Brother's Boat" so relentlessly charming. "Upon The North" charges ahead with the same type of exuberance, running without looking down, aimed breathlessly on the horizon in the northern sky, despite the fact that, for the American music consumer, this band's future lies dead west with the setting sun.

Eliza and the Bear :: "Brother's Boat"

Essex, UK band Eliza and the Bear have redrafted gravity on expansive and hooky single, "Brother's Boat." Like a distended and outraged Edward Sharpe, the band traffics in the same always-be-rising orchestral pop first outlined by Polyphonic Spree and later darkened and perfected by Arcade Fire. "Brother's Boat" is more electric guitar driven than any of the aforementioned bands, they are also a perfect "indie crossover," the kind that makes A&R's from Columbia think romantically how this song might look in the trailer for whatever becomes next year's Beasts of the Southern Wild or, better, as the closing 25-seconds of an advertisement for a Nissan automobile. An intern should be scrambling down the hall from their cubicle before the final chorus; this is that good. The two driving lyrics, "just let it go," and "you left your family home," are as brutal as they are oblique, that kind of general, life-affirming pop onto which the listener can project a multitude of personal specifics. By the final, crashing conclusion, it is not just the arrangement that touches its outer markers, it is a band more than ready to expand beyond itself.